“River!” his father said crossly.

“What?”

“You know what.”

“This is a special occasion that requires a drink. I mean, how often do you meet your long-lost abducted sister?”

He was drunk. Raven was quite sure he was stoned on pot or pills, too. She’d seen that look at her school often enough.

“Do you attend church?” Gram Bauhammer asked Raven.

Raven shook her head.

“Did the woman who took you—”

“Audrey followed no particular faith,” Aunt Sondra interjected.

“I remember that about your parents,” Gram Bauhammer said. “They abandoned their faith, and that led to their divorce.”

Aunt Sondra looked livid about her apparent criticism of her parents, but she kept her composure. “Not true,” she said. “It was only my mother who left our church.”

“She dabbled in Eastern religions, didn’t she? That had to be confusing for you and your sister.”

“Not for me,” Aunt Sondra said, “but it might have been for Audrey.”

“That explains everything,” River said. “No wonder she abducted someone else’s baby.”

“I was not abducted,” Raven said.

He looked both amused and angry. “You weren’t hers, she took you, and she ran away with you. I think that’s officially called abduction.”

“I was hers,” Raven said.

River drained his glass. “You have a bad case of Stockholm there, sis.”

“I’m very sorry,” Jonah said to Aunt Sondra and Raven. “My son is having some problems.”

River rose out of his seat with a stagger. “I am. My glass seems to have gone dry.”

“Jasper . . . ,” Jonah said, nodding at River.

Jasper took his brother’s arm.

“And away we go,” River said as his brother led him out of the room.

“I believe dinner is ready,” Jonah said. “Please come into the dining room.”

Two women wearing uniforms came out of the kitchen to serve them. Beef tenderloin, mashed potatoes, and green beans. Gram Bauhammer said a prayer, most of it gratitude to her god for “returning Viola to the love and guidance of her true family.”

Raven wanted to throw her plate of food at the woman.

River and Jasper came back. “I apologize for my rude behavior,” River said to Raven.

He and his brother sat across from her and Aunt Sondra. Jasper was brought a completely different dinner. From what Raven could tell, he was vegan. He even looked a little like Jackie. Raven looked down at her food to stop her urge to cry.

Jonah and Jasper attempted to keep a conversation going. They mostly talked about what Jasper was doing at college. Gram Bauhammer inserted her strong opinions throughout. She told Aunt Sondra, “River would be in school with his brother if they didn’t give scholarships to people who have no right to be in an Ivy League school.”

“I have no right or desire to be at Cornell,” River said. “You’ll remember, I didn’t apply.”

“Only because you knew they would give preference to all those—”

“Mom, please keep those opinions to yourself,” Jonah said sharply.

Gram Bauhammer cast a sour look at her son but said no more.

Raven had no stomach for the food or the strange family seated around her. She ate just enough to be polite and kept quiet.

As dessert was served, Jonah asked, “Raven, is there anything you’d like to ask us?”

She wanted to ask them why they were forcing themselves on her. She wanted to ask if she could leave and never see them again. But she was curious about one topic all but Jasper had avoided: the woman who looked like her, the one who had painted birds and flowers on the nursery walls. “I would like to know about Ellis,” she said.

“Also known as your mother,” River muttered.

“We’ve been out of contact with her for a long time,” Jonah said.

“Since not long after you were abducted,” River said pointedly. He stared at her, expecting her to challenge the word abducted.

She had no interest in playing games with the drunken attention-seeker. “Where does she live?” she asked.

Jonah looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know.”

River snickered, and his father aimed a dark look at him.

Their exchange implied that Jonah did know. She wondered why he’d lie.

Raven was relieved when the dinner ended. She whispered to her aunt that she wanted to leave. Sondra drew in a deep breath, then slowly exhaled, that familiar sign of an impending fight. “Come sit with us in the living room,” her aunt said.

Raven went but refused to sit.

“The situation is this . . . ,” her aunt said. “I have to get back to my work and family in Chicago, and you have nowhere to live but here. At least for the time being.”

“I have a house in Washington! I’m not staying here!”

“You don’t own that house yet. It belongs to my sister until I can prove she’s deceased.”

“Ms. Danner will be my guardian. I’ll live at her house.”

“Neither she nor a judge would agree to that when you have a legal guardian. Your father is here for you, Raven. He’s here to help and guide you.”