As for Heather and the kids, I’ll tell them I’ve been offered a job overseas, somewhere in the Middle East at a company that’s paying six times my old salary at PK Adamson. An eighteen-month contract, then I’m back for good. I’ll be making more money than I’ve ever made in my life; Heather can renovate the house while I’m gone. Do whatever she wants to it.

It’ll be fast, but if I propose to Skye at the end of the winter and push for a quick engagement, we could be married by August or September. Our marriage will then begin to unravel soon after the wedding. We’ll realize it was a mistake and that we rushed into things. I’ll show her I’m not the sweet, loving man she thought I was. I won’t be unfaithful or abusive—nothing that could come back to bite me in court. We’ll be divorced in six months, tops. Skye’s father may want me to sign a prenup, yes, but I’ll cross that bridge if and when I come to it. Prenups are a bit offensive, after all, and I’ll have Skye on my side to defend my honor.

I won’t get half—even with the best lawyer, half doesn’t seem feasible—but I have confirmation that Skye’s money isn’t tied up at all, and even 10 percent would be more than enough. Enough to pay off the mortgage and for Hope’s teeth and the rest of her tuition (even with our kids taking out student loans in their own names, our family’s contribution to their tuitions has not been insignificant). Enough to let Heather quit driving fucking Uber. Enough to move to a nicer part of Connecticut. Enough to give Heather the life I was always supposed to give her. The life she deserves.

It’s money Skye doesn’t even need, if you think about it. When you have tens of millions of dollars, losing a fraction of that isn’t even noticeable.

I’ve never considered myself to be a bad person, Dr. K. I’ve done some things I’m not proud of, but at the end of the day, my heart’s been in the right place. And I truly feel that my heart is in the right place now. If there’s one thing I’ve realized, it’s that life doesn’t hand itself to you—unless you’re born lucky, you’ve got to go out and make things happen for yourself. You’ve got to outsmart the motherfucking system. And if Skye Starling is the one casualty in all this, so be it. Self-exposure comes at a cost, and that’s a good lesson to learn. She’ll get over it eventually.

Chapter Twelve

Heather

FEBRUARY 1990

Libby threw Gus a Sesame Street–themed birthday party. It was Libby’s idea, and Libby’s wallet; I’d never had the foresight or funds to do anything more than buy cupcakes from the A&P on Gus’s birthday. He’d definitely never had a birthday party.

But Gus was turning five, and Libby insisted on doing something special. I could tell she’d grown increasingly fond of Gus in recent months, often treating him like her second son. Sometimes when we went out for meals or ran errands—Libby, her kids, Gus and me—it felt as though Gus were one of Libby’s three children and I was their babysitter. I didn’t hate it. It alleviated some of the weight on my shoulders to see Gus coddled in Libby’s maternal hands—the way she knew exactly what to do when he had a sore throat, or how she didn’t allow the boys more than one hour per week in front of the TV.

Too much television stunts growing brains, she’d tell me, never caving when the boys screamed and whined for more Sesame Street. Libby was kind but firm, generous but strong-willed; I thought she was the most perfect mother I’d ever witnessed. Though I was the one raising Gus, though I loved him fiercely and would have done anything to protect him, I was only his sister. I didn’t know the small yet vital truths that only mothers can understand, and I was grateful for the impact Libby was having on my little brother. I even let myself imagine that, a little over a year down the road, Libby might offer to take Gus in when I went to college. She and Peter would be back in Connecticut by then, and I couldn’t help but dream of Gus and me escaping Langs Valley, once and for all.

My father had been gone since Christmas—just up and left one day “to get a beer” with his buddy Bill––and he still wasn’t back when Gus turned five on February 17. I guess Bill was driving that day because Dad left us the car, which was a rare stroke of luck for me.

Gus’s birthday fell on a Saturday, and we went over to Libby’s after breakfast to help set up for the party. Six inches of fresh snow had fallen overnight, a blanket of white coating the fields around our house like a layer of fresh whipped cream. A paper bag hung from the front doorknob, sheltered underneath the stoop. The bag had the letter G written on the front.

“I think it’s a present for you, bud,” I told Gus, handing it to him in the Chevy on the way to Libby’s.

Gus squealed, and through the rearview mirror I watched him tear open the package.

“Look!” His expression morphed into pure glee as he pulled out a red plastic fire truck.

“Wow, Gussie! Is there a card in the bag?”

“Umm. Yup!” He passed me a folded note. “What’s it say?”

My heart dropped into my stomach at the sight of the familiar scribble. Happy Birthday, Gusser! Can’t believe you are 5. Love, Burke.

“It’s from Burke.” I stuffed the note in the center console, a strange mix of feelings stirring through me.

“I miss Burke,” Gus whined from the backseat. “Where’d he go, Heddah? Why’d he go away like Daddy?”

“I told you this, bud.” I tried to smile. “Burke was my boyfriend, but he’s not anymore. It was sweet of him to get you that truck, though. We can go see him sometime soon and say thank you. Would you like that?”

“Yes, please.” Gus kicked one of his little legs and looked out the window.

A wave of regret tumbled through me. I knew Gus missed having Burke around—the three of us had been a sort of family, oddly enough. Burke’s father had been in prison for as long as I could remember, and his mother, a stewardess, chased some guy to California and hadn’t been back to Langs Valley in years. Burke used to live with his grandmother, but when her dementia got bad our sophomore year, they put her in a nursing home and sold her house to pay for the cost. After that Burke had more or less moved in with Gus and me, even though he was technically supposed to be living with his aunt Pam in Lyon Mountain.

As the nostalgia bloomed in my chest and I felt a pang of longing for Burke, I quickly shifted my thoughts, the way Libby had taught me to do.

It’s easy to think of the good times, she’d explained. You have to train yourself to remember the bad times. The reasons why you left.

I thought of all the mornings I’d woken up to Burke passed out on the couch, fully clothed, empty beer cans and remnants of white powder dusting the coffee table while Gus sat cross-legged in front of cartoons. Worst was the time Gus showed me what he’d found in Burke’s truck, uncurling his little fingers to reveal a skinny glass crack pipe, the bowl stained with dark residue. Tears pricked my eyes as I pried it out of Gus’s hand, because that’s when I knew Burke had been lying to me.

And why should I have been surprised? I knew better than anyone else that crack was coming through Langs Valley. And I knew Burke—I knew the dark, cavernous void that existed in his heart, the void he would keep trying, uselessly, to fill. I knew because the same one persisted inside my own aortic chambers—the void that comes from lack of parental love. My advantage was that I understood it could never be filled, that the best way to conquer it was to comprehend it. Burke never believed me when I tried to explain that drugs and alcohol would kill him before they fixed him, and you can’t move through life with someone unable to grasp that.

I didn’t know where the fiery resolve in me had come from, but I was grateful for it. And after meeting Libby, I was even more determined to resist the life into which I’d been born. To resist the easy, chemistry-fueled relationship with the first and only boy I’d ever loved, the person who cared for me more than any other living soul ever had. Because like all of his friends, like his parents and my parents, Burke was an addict. I couldn’t allow another addict to play any part in rearing Gus or, God forbid, children of my own. I’d witnessed firsthand the relentless force with which drugs ripped families apart, but I was lucky to be able to see the world in black and white.

I remembered when my mother first told me she was pregnant with Gus. It was summer—August maybe—and she sat me down out back and told me I was going to be a big sister. I was ecstatic; I’d been begging for a younger brother or sister for years and had grown resigned that it wasn’t likely to happen.