“He had to.” Aunt Caro’s eyes welled with tears. “He got her pregnant. I’ve begun divorce proceedings.”

“Divorce.” Maman blanched. “What will we tell people?”

My mother’s mind always went straight to What will people think? She glanced nervously at Monsignor Clement on the church steps.

“That’s all you have to say?” Aunt Caro said.

“You won’t be able to attend Mass.”

“It’s a pity, but I can read scripture on my own. Let’s go.”

Maman didn’t move. “You need to go to your own home, tend to things there.”

“I was hoping to stay with you.”

“You need to go to your own apartment.”

“I can’t. Lionel’s moving her into our place.”

“That isn’t my affair.”

How shocking to see Maman, who hated confrontation, arguing in front of the church, before God and everyone. How could she be so cruel to her own flesh and bones?

“Please,” Aunt Caro said. “I can’t bear to be on my own.”

Maman’s gaze skittered to mine. I expected her to embrace her sister like she did me when I fell and scraped my knee, but Maman merely said, “I don’t want the children to be influenced.”

A divorcée was beneath a fallen woman. My mother believed what the church told her to believe, but surely she’d make an exception for her own sister.

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” Aunt Caro said. “I don’t have any money.”

“Please, Maman,” I said. But her expression only hardened.

“Divorce is a sin.”

“We can ask forgiveness for a sin at confession,” I replied.

When Maman couldn’t win with logic, she used force. She grabbed my arm and dragged me down the street, toward home. I looked back at Aunt Caroline, who watched us go, hand trembling at her breast.

When we arrived, I went straight to Rémy’s room, but as I twisted the knob, Maman propped herself against the door. “Don’t upset your brother.”

Over the next days, I asked about Aunt Caro, certain Maman would relent. She said, “Mention her one more time, and I’ll send you away.” I believed her.

For two weeks, I held my silence, or my silence held me. Unable to keep a secret from Rémy any longer, I perched beside him on the bed. His complexion was ashen, and I knew that he was exhausted from the incessant coughs that racked his body. “That mustard plaster makes you smell like a Sunday roast,” I teased.

“Very funny.”

“Sorry.” I moved to tousle his hair. If he let me, he forgave my joke. If he didn’t, he was still angry.

He let me.

“Feeling better?”

“Not really.”

“Oh.” I didn’t dare tell—Maman had warned me not to upset him. My parents and I lived in fear of a relapse. We whispered when we believed Rémy might be sleeping, we tiptoed past his room.

What is it? I felt him ask.

Nothing, I replied.

Tell, he insisted.

Sometimes we communicated like that.

He listened as my pain poured out: I’d believed our mother’s love flowed unconditionally, yet she’d flicked it off like a faucet. And what would become of our aunt?

“Maman told me that Aunt Caro wanted to move back to Macon,” he said slowly.

My head reared back. Wanted to?

“Then why didn’t Aunt Caro say goodbye?” I argued. “Why hasn’t she written?”

For once, my chatty brother didn’t have an answer.

“You’d rather believe what’s convenient than what’s true,” I accused.

“You must have misunderstood. Maman could never be so cruel.”

His refusal to believe me was as devastating as our mother forsaking her own sister.

“You weren’t there,” I said. “Playing sick, as usual.”

His face flushed. He sat up and opened his mouth. I braced myself, expecting him to let me have it. Instead, he hacked and hacked, a deep cough that brought black blood. Helpless, I handed him my handkerchief and stroked his back, all thoughts of winning the argument gone.

Two months later, Rémy was back to attending Mass. Like Maman, he knelt lovingly before the crucifix, convinced his faith had brought him through. I let him believe what he needed to. I had learned that love was not patient, love was not kind. Love was conditional. The people closest to you could turn their backs on you, saying goodbye for something that seemed like nothing. You could only depend on yourself.

My passion for reading grew—books wouldn’t betray. While Rémy spent his pocket money on sweets, I saved mine. He was the class clown, I the valedictorian. When his friends asked me out, I said no. Love was out of the question. I would learn a trade, get a job, and save money, so that when the inevitable happened, I could save myself.

* * *

BLEARY-EYED AFTER A restless night, I tried to help subscribers as best I could. It was hard not to dwell. Papa had a mistress, Rémy spent every second with Bitsi, and Paul hadn’t returned to see me. I stopped at the circulation desk in hopes that Boris would have a book for me.

“You’ve been blue today.” He handed me 891.73. “Go to the Afterlife. No one will bother you there.”