He turned to her and smiled. “As you can see, I don’t do this much.”

And judging from his big office, Steve wasn’t a regular police officer. He was the police officer, the one in charge. Sandy looked up at the bookcase over his head: a couple of framed certificates, a diploma, and a trophy with a basketball player on top. On the second shelf, she noticed the pictures. Dozens of family snapshots. Her eyes settled on one in the middle: a family of four, clustered together on the beach, all smiles and lit up by the sun. And right there, in the center, a face she fucking recognized: Hannah.

Jesus Christ. That would have been something nice to know. You know: Hey, FWIW, my dad’s the chief of police. But it wasn’t like Hannah had lied. They’d never talked about their dads, only their moms. Always their moms.

“Wait, your mom wouldn’t let you what?” Sandy had asked a month or two into their sessions, choking on her coffee. Hannah had been telling another insane story about her mom—they seemed extra insane because Hannah seemed to think they were totally normal. At least Sandy knew Jenna was screwed up.

They’d been studying at the Black Cat again. Hannah always wanted to go there, said she felt more comfortable around the college kids, though Sandy always felt like Hannah was waiting to see someone. Like maybe she had a crush on a barista or something. Sandy even asked once whether there was someone, and Hannah had blown her off with the usual “You know I don’t date yet.”

“My mom wouldn’t let me wear sparkles,” Hannah said.

“Sparkles? What are you, Dora the Explorer?”

Hannah started laughing so hard that her face got all red. “I mean when I was little,” she said when she’d caught her breath. “I always wanted to wear those sneakers that are all covered in glitter. You know?”

“No, I don’t know,” Sandy said. Like the junk drawer, glitter sneakers: another of life’s mysteries. “But I gotta be honest, they sound ugly as shit.”

“Yeah,” Hannah said this time with a forced laugh. But she looked kind of sad as she turned to look out the window. She was so pretty in the light. Delicate and soft in a way Sandy would never be. As Hannah’s smile sank, Sandy watched her try to lift it back up. “They were ugly, I guess. But I cried for so long when she said no. I couldn’t stop crying, which only made my mom madder.” Her eyes got wide, remembering. “Like she really, really hated me.”

I’m sure she doesn’t hate you, Sandy thought about saying. But she didn’t like it when people said that kind of bullshit to her. As if them thinking the world was always so perfect and right would make it so.

“That’s messed up. What did you do?”

“Do?” Hannah blinked at Sandy. “With my mom, there’s nothing to do except try not to make her mad the next time. I’m always trying to do that. To be the person she wants me to be.”

“Is it working?”

“Not really.” Hannah shook her head. Her eyes were glassy.

“Don’t you ever just want to say fuck off instead?” Sandy asked. “I mean, no offense, but isn’t she supposed to be the person who loves you no matter what?” Even Jenna did that.

“I think about it sometimes—a lot, even,” Hannah said, looking down. She was quiet for a while before she looked up. “But that would just make her hate me forever.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe it would make her change.” Sandy wasn’t sure who she was talking about: Hannah’s mom or Jenna.

“No,” Hannah said softly, picking her pencil up and focusing again on her schoolwork. “My mom will never change.”

“Yikes,” Steve said. When Sandy snapped her eyes down from the pictures, he was pointing toward the scab on her arm. “What happened there?”

Shit. Sandy had let her sleeve ride up. “Oh, I fell off my bike.” She wrinkled her nose like a little kid—you know, “these things happen.” But her heart was pounding. Breathe. Fucking breathe. It’s just a question. One that anybody would ask, not just a cop. “At least my bike’s okay.”

“I don’t know about that.” Steve shook his head. “Bike can be replaced. You can’t. Hope you’re not riding around at night without reflective gear. I’m telling you, there are more bicyclist fatalities that way. Got to be careful out there.”

“Yeah. I mean, no. I mean—” Sandy shook her head, feeling sick. “I have reflectors.”

“Good, good. Okay, now I’m ready here with this system. Spell your mom’s full name for me?” Steve was leaning over his computer again, fingers raised above the keyboard.

“Jenna Mendelson. M-e-n-d-e-l-s-o-n.”

Steve didn’t type. Didn’t move. He stayed frozen like that, hands floating over the keys. Sandy could feel her stomach pushing up. Was Jenna already dead, and Steve knew it? Did the mention of her name click the pieces into place? Slowly he turned to look at Sandy, peeling off his glasses. The friendly-dad look on his face was totally gone. Now there was a full-on cop there. And it was scaring the hell out of her.

“I think maybe we should start again. At the beginning,” he said, staring dead at her. “When exactly was the last time you saw your mother?”

MOLLY

MAY 18, 2013

What I told Dr. Zomer was not the whole truth. I didn’t even tell Justin that. But I think he knew. Of course he did.

I did drop a glass and I did slip and cut my hand a little when I was trying to clean it up. That’s all true. But when I saw the blood on my hand, I didn’t feel upset or worried. I felt relieved. Like the world had been rebalanced.

I don’t even remember picking up the piece of glass that I cut my arm with. But I did. I must have. I do remember being careful not to cause any real damage, in my nonexpert medical opinion. Because I could have if I’d wanted to. I could have done so much more.

And then Ella started to cry—one of her night terrors. And so I ran to her without thinking, because I could do that by then, comfort her after a bad dream. I didn’t realize how much that small cut was already bleeding.

I had Ella in my arms when Justin came home a few minutes later. As soon as he saw us, he started yelling: Where’s she bleeding? Where’s she bleeding? It wasn’t until I looked down that I saw Ella’s head was covered in blood.

A second later, I passed out. Luckily, Justin caught me—and Ella, thank God—as I fell. Next thing I knew, the paramedics were lifting me into the ambulance. Halfway to the hospital, they realized that the cut to my arm wasn’t serious. That I’d passed out not from blood loss but from the sight of it all over my daughter.

Justin lied and told the paramedics that he had been there, seen the whole thing. That it had been an accident, me and the broken glass and my arm. And watching Justin do that for me, lie like his life depended on it, like my life depended on it—and it might have, they could have hospitalized me against my will—I have never loved him more.

And so when he’d insisted the next day that I go see Dr. Zomer, I went. It was the least I could do.

Molly

“I got you a latte,” Stella said when I got to the Black Cat. She was at a table by the window, two coffees already in front of her. “Full-fat milk, of course. Because that’s all they serve in this godforsaken place.” Her nostrils flared. “Honestly, I don’t understand why you like it here.”

“It reminds me of the city,” I said as I sat down across from her, trying not to think of the box of files I’d had Steve leave in our living room. The box that was left by some stranger. A reader, maybe, but an angry one? A happy one? Who was to say? Thinking of it still inside my house filled me with dread. I wasn’t sure that I’d done the right thing, not reporting it as a crime.