There was a ping on the phone. His phone. She picked it up.

“Oh look,” said Anna. “Matilda says your publisher in France has offered half a million for the new novel. I’ll get back to her in a couple of days, though I don’t think your French publisher will be at the top of our list by then.” She paused. “What was I saying?”

The cat had returned and leapt up onto the bed. He took one of his favorite positions, alongside Jake’s right calf.

“Not once, in sixteen years, was there one sign of affection. She pushed me away, I swear, when I was trying to nurse her. She preferred not eating to being close to me, physically. She toilet trained herself so I wouldn’t have that power over her. I knew she didn’t plan to hang around Rutland a day longer than she had to, but I thought she’d at least do things in the normal way—graduate from high school, maybe go as far as Burlington. Not Rose. She just came downstairs one day when she was sixteen and told me she was leaving at the end of the summer. Bang. I couldn’t even tell her there was no money for an out-of-state college a thousand miles away. She had a scholarship, she had a room in a dorm, she even had a stipend for living expenses from some do-gooder down there. I said I at least wanted to take her, and I could tell she didn’t even want that, but when she thought about it practically she understood what it meant for her own convenience. She knew she was never coming home, so she let me drive her, and I let her pretty much fill up the car, everything she wanted, only a little room left over for my own things. But you know what? There wasn’t much I wanted to take for myself. Just a few clothes and an old propane heater.”

With all of his strength he turned his head to her.

“It wasn’t an accident, Jake. Even with your supposedly great imagination you couldn’t get your mind around that. Maybe you’ve got some gender blindness about motherhood, like it’s impossible for a mother to do that. Fathers, sure, no one bats an eye if they kill one of their kids, but do the same thing while in possession of a uterus and bam: the world explodes. It’s sexism, really, isn’t it, if you think about it. Evan didn’t have that problem, in case you’re wondering. In his version I take a carving knife to my teenage daughter in the middle of the night, and bury her in the backyard. But then he actually knew me. And he knew my daughter, don’t forget that. He knew what a bitch she was.”

It reminded Jake of something, that word. But he couldn’t think what.

Anna sighed. She still had Jake’s phone. She was scrolling through photographs, deleting. Very far away, he could feel the cat, Whidbey, begin to purr against his leg.

“I let those yokels bury her,” Anna said. “People always want to involve themselves when they see a tragedy. I’d been happy to take care of it myself. Have the body cremated—I mean, it was halfway there already. And sprinkle the ashes, whatever. I’m not sentimental about these things. But they offered, and all expenses paid. So I said, I can’t get over how incredibly kind you people are, and You’ve restored my faith in humanity and Let us pray. And then I left for Athens.”

Anna smiled down at him. “What did you really think of Athens? Can you see me living there? I mean, I was lying low, of course. I didn’t get involved in any of the social stuff. It was all frats and football, and all that big hair and the good old boys, everybody living in those tacky apartment communities. I got the housing waiver by telling them my mother had just passed away, and I really wanted to be alone. I didn’t even have to go into the housing office, which was lucky. I’ve always looked younger than my age, but I was pretty sure I couldn’t pass for sixteen. Especially after this happened to my hair.” She stopped to smile at him. “I did tell you it happened when my mom died, so that was kind of true. Anyway, I dyed it blond while I was in Georgia.” She grinned. “Helped me to blend in. Just another bottle-blond Bulldawg.”

He used every bit of his strength to turn away from her and onto his side, but he couldn’t quite get there. His head, though, had moved on the pillow, giving him a blurry view of the half-empty glass and the completely empty bottles.

“Vicodin,” she said helpfully. “And something called gabapentin, which I got for my restless leg syndrome. It makes the opioids work better. Did you know I have restless leg syndrome? Well, I don’t really have it, I just said I did. There’s no actual test for that, so all you need to do is go to your doctor and say, ‘Doctor! I have a strong, irresistible urge to move my legs. Especially at night! Accompanied by uncomfortable sensations!’ Then they rule out iron deficiency and neurological stuff, and voilà: you’re diagnosed. I made the appointment last fall in case they wanted me to do a sleep study before giving me the prescription, but this doctor went straight to the drugs, so good for her. She also gave me some Oxycontin for the terrible pain, and she threw in the Valium when I told her there was this crazy troll accusing my boyfriend of plagiarism online, and we were both stressed out beyond belief. That was Valium in the soup, by the way.” He heard her laugh. “Which definitely was not in my mother’s version. I also gave you something for nausea, to make sure you don’t throw up all my hard work when I’m halfway to Seattle. Anyway, it’s all pretty foolproof in combination, so I’d relax if I were you.” Anna sighed. “Look, I can stay a bit longer. See you through the worst of it, if you want. Do you want? Squeeze my hand if you want.”

And Jake, who couldn’t have said what he wanted, and had already forgotten what he was supposed to do about it, felt her squeeze his hand, and he squeezed back.

“Right,” she said. “What else? Oh … Athens. I was loving being back in school. Education really is wasted on the young, isn’t it? When I was in high school I used to look at people in my class, and my brother and his friends, and think, This is fantastic! We get to sit here all day and learn stuff. Why are you all such assholes about it? My brother was the biggest asshole of them all, by the way. Not once in my entire life did he ask me a question about myself, or say a single loving thing to me, and I had zero problem with never laying eyes on him again till he started trying to get in touch with me. By which I mean, in touch with Rose. And that wasn’t because he was suddenly interested in her, either. It was because he wanted to sell the house. Maybe because the bar was tanking. Maybe because he was back on the drugs, I didn’t know, but I guess he figured he couldn’t leave my daughter out of it and not expect a lawsuit. I didn’t answer any of his calls or emails, so one day that winter he just came down to Georgia. I saw him waiting in a car in front of Athena Gardens. Unfortunately, he saw me first.”

Anna checked the time again.

“Anyway, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I thought, Okay. He’s seen me. He can obviously recognize his own sister, so even a moron like my brother is going to figure out what happened here. I hoped we were just going to leave each other alone, the same way we’d always done. And I mean, I knew he’d moved back into the house himself, so a little appreciation wouldn’t have gone amiss, but of course that was never my brother’s way. And one day I saw on Facebook that he’d signed up for some writing program in the Northeast Kingdom. And maybe you’re thinking, Okay, but why assume he was going to write about this one thing? All I can say is: I knew my brother. He wasn’t what you might call an imaginative guy. He was a magpie. He saw a pretty, shiny thing on the ground and he thought, Now that’s got to have some value. So he helped himself. I’m sure you can understand, Jake, what that must have been like, having someone steal from you like that. So a couple of months later I drove back to Vermont and I waited till he left for work, and you can color me surprised because that asshole actually managed to write almost two hundred pages. Of my story. And don’t think he was doing it for himself, either. This wasn’t some inner exploration through creative writing, trying to find his voice or understand the pain at the center of his family of origin. I found publication contests, lists of agents, the dude even had a subscription to Publishers Weekly. He knew what he was doing. He had a plan to make some serious money. Off me. People today bitch if you use a culturally appropriated word or hairstyle? That bastard just helped himself to my entire life story. Now you know that isn’t right, Jake, don’t you? Isn’t that what they say in the writing programs? Nobody else can tell your story but you?”