Mrs Bertram broke the silence by holding out a translucent hand. "Fawn, darling." Her voice was reedy and high as it had always been, but her eyes were relatively clear. Despite the heat of the day, she had an afghan tucked around her legs. Her gentle smile, the way it hung about her eyes in crinkles and folds—how had I forgotten that? I could see Tom in that smile, and Ned, and, when she smiled, Mireille. Mrs Bertram and I had hidden up here from the world together for months, interrupted only by Henry; we had hidden here and we had helped each other hide; her smile reminded me of that. I stepped across the room to her and took her hand, sitting on the couch beside her legs. This, at least, was easy.

"I go by Flannery now, Mrs Bertram," I saw her eyes go wide with surprise again, but then she beamed at me and pressed my hand between her own.

"Of course, darling. Ned told me, but I'm a little forgetful these days. Let me see your face, Flannery. You are so beautiful, my goodness, like a fairy princess. Don't you agree, darling?" She sent her question up and behind her to her husband, who had watched this whole exchange with a customary furrow of his brow. He grunted, which would have been disagreement from Billy or Tom or Ned, but may have been assent in this man not given to agreeing with anyone.

"Mom, you remember Billy, Flannery's brother," Ned spoke up behind us. Billy stepped across the room as I had done, and shook Mrs Bertram's hand gently in one of his own, before stepping back and eyeing the other two adults uneasily.

"Of course, how are you? You're even taller than I remember. And who is this lovely young woman?" Mrs Bertram's eyes rested on Susie's face, torn between defiance and bewilderment, the toe of her sneaker dragging in one of the roses on the carpet in a heartbreakingly familiar way.

"This is our little sister, Susie," I said quietly, smiling at Susie and gesturing her over. Looking confused, Susie walked over and shook Mrs Betram's offered hand, then settled onto the arm of the chair nearest the sofa.

"My goodness," Mrs Bertram said again, looking between the two of us in wonder, "you two look so much alike, Flannery darling, I almost thought it was you when you were younger. Do you remember when you were twelve years old and we had you over for Christmas dinner? Do you? You were so skinny and long you were all elbows and knees and freckles and that beautiful hair of yours, and you were delighted by the carolers we had over that night, do you remember? What a gorgeous evening. You ended up falling asleep next to the fireplace, and Ned carried you upstairs to sleep so we wouldn't disturb you. Susie, you look just like she did back then. Only your eyes are different, I think. Don't you?" Again, she threw the question back over her shoulder, and again her husband grunted, only this time there was a softness in his face when he looked at his wife, when he looked at my sister, and when he looked at me. I remembered that night, very vividly. It was the first time I'd heard anyone singing Christmas carols in real life, or witnessed people popping corn over the fire. I'd never had a Christmas tree of my own, and the only time I'd ever hung ornaments was at Uncle Liam's house, and we had never been allowed to stay over because Liam and my dad would always get into an argument. Nola had enjoyed herself so much that she hadn't even paid attention to me, and after I'd fallen asleep, clutching the set of eight basic colored pencils I'd gotten in my stocking just like everyone else, Ned had begged his parents to let me stay until New Year's Day. I'd woken up on Boxing Day and Ned and Tom had taken me to sled and build snow forts, Tom enjoying his last Christmas at home before college, Ned a glowing, promising sixteen-year-old, and me, so long and skinny that I was all elbows and all knees and all freckles. That had been an enchanted week, maybe the best week I'd ever had. I looked back to where Ned was standing and found him studying the carpet, his mouth a curiously tight twist. I turned back to Mrs Bertram.

"Susie darling, you're already beautiful, but you're going to grow into something special. I can tell just by looking at the three of you." It was the most she'd ever said to me at any point in my life, and already her voice was losing strength, and she settled back onto the couch with a sigh.

"It's polite to greet people when you see them," came a quiet, acid voice from the back corner of the room. No need to turn to see who it was.

"Nola," Mrs Bertram protested weakly. From the corner of my eye I could see Ned shift from one foot to the other, his arms crossed.

"Hello, Nola," I said, then turned to look at her, at the hard lines of her face, at the perfect platinum of her hair. "You've met Billy, but this is Susie. Susie, meet your aunt Nola. Mom's sister," Nola's nostrils flared at the mention of our mother, but she studied Susie calmly enough, with less derision than I had feared.

"It's polite to greet people when you see them," Susie's eyes were narrowed and her chin jutted forward. Billy snorted with laughter, but I felt the familiar fear rise in me as Nola smiled back, displaying her perfect teeth. From his spot in the middle of the room, Billy drawled, "What a pleasure it is to see you again, Nola. You look the same." His voice braced me, and I took a steadying breath.

Nola snorted primly through her nose, "William. I see time hasn't improved your manners. You look just like your father."

"We all do," I said quietly before Billy's face had a chance to go white with rage.

"Is that supposed to be an insult, that we look like our father? Isn't that, like, genetics?" Susie was glaring daggers at Nola now, and in a moment I'm sure she would have said something more drastic, but Dr Bertram's hand descended on the back of her chair, and he said, "Nola, if you wouldn't mind, I would like to save the interrogation for later. They're guests in my house." The emphasis on my was subtle but clear.

There was a silence as Ned, Nola, and I all blinked at Dr Bertram in surprise. I had always known Dr Bertram didn't like Nola, and that he never had, but I had always seen them as part of the same whole, the cadre of Mansfield adults. For him to be putting her off in favor of me seemed almost wrong. Had he defended me before, when I wasn't around? Would it matter if he had?

Dr Bertram turned to Billy and shook his hand firmly, then offered his hand to Susie as well, who, torn between anger at Nola and general confusion over the whole scene, shook his hand with a slight frown.

"I don't suppose we're going to ask them why they're even here," Nola commented in an undertone.

"No, I don't suppose 'we' are," said Dr Bertram, settling himself down in his armchair with an air of boredom.

"They're my guests, Nola. I invited them," Ned was looking out the window as if already bored with the conversation, and I couldn't help smiling. The whole Bertram family had a way of pretending that an unwelcome conversation was boring and beneath their notice, even Ned. "If you have a problem with that I assure you that I never want to hear it."

"Tom's doing much better," Mrs Bertram pressed her hand down on mine suddenly, turning us all away from whatever conflict Ned and Nola might have had. "His fever is broken, and he's been awake for a while, hasn't he, Ned? The doctors say he'll be up and about in no time again," she beamed, her head resting back on the pillow. "It's such a relief, isn't it?" Her question trailed off, and no one mistook it for one that needed to be answered. I didn't turn to look at Ned, but it seemed to me that Tom's injuries weren't something that could heal in a week or two. Up and about in no time? Was that possible?

Mrs Bertram's eyes fluttered closed for a moment before opening slowly. Dr Bertram cleared his throat, standing up and indicating with a gesture of his head that we were all to leave the room. One by one, we filed out into the hallway, the door closing softly behind us. Nola, banished like the rest of us much to her dismay, arranged her knitting back into her basket with an air of superiority.

"Will you ever stop being an imposition, Fawn?"

I didn't bother correcting her. She knew what she was doing. Billy made a sound deep in his throat and Ned opened his mouth to speak, but for the first time in my life, I found the words before anyone else.

"Probably. What about you?"

I turned and walked away down the hall, pretending that I was Ned and that the conversation had bored me silly. It worked, a little.

We were on the lawn in the shade of the big tree: Susie on her stomach, me on my back. I had my arm thrown over my eyes; Susie was splitting blades of grass down their exact centers.

"So this whole day has been really weird," she said darkly, and I opened my eyes to see her toss her grass away moodily.

"Has it?"

"Oh, come on. Like, stuff like that doesn't happen everyday, does it?"

"Stuff like what?"

"Like," she sat up and crossed her legs, hooking her long hair behind her ears and glaring at me, "what's the deal with Mrs Bertram? She's weird. What's going on with her napping and looking all sick and pale and stuff? And Dr Bertram's been weird every time I've seen him, like, not being worried about Tom, who I'm worried about, and I don't even know him, and then he's all supportive today like he cares about you but I don't think that's true, or is it? And don't get me started on Nola because she sucks. Like, this entire day has been kookoo bananas. Are you honestly trying to tell me that you don't see that or are you just playing devil's advocate right now?"

"I mean, this is pretty normal for here."

"Yeah, but, like, normal people just don't do shit like this, like raise kids like this or be mean to each other like this. You're supposed to be family, right? Normal people don't treat their family like that."

I gazed up through the tree top to the sky beyond, patterned by the leaves fluttering in the wind. My hands played on my stomach for a moment before I answered her.

"Remember how pissed off you were when we wouldn't tell you about mom? It was on my birthday."

"I remember," she sighed explosively.

"No, I'm answering your question, I promise. So, you were pissed off because you didn't think that Mom and Dad could be so bad that we don't talk about them, right? This, even though you've seen Dad a couple times when he wasn't at his best."

"You mean when he was drunk as hell? Yeah."

"I mean, if we're getting down to normalcy, right, if we're trying to get to what normal people do, then normal people don't get drunk and hit their kids, right? Or run away and abandon them for weeks at a time. Right?"

"They hit you?"

"Here, nobody has ever hit me. Not even Nola. I mean, I don't think that's the kind of person that she is. I never felt safe with her, and I didn't feel like the other adults would help me, but she would never have hurt me like that. So she's not normal, but it was a better kind of abnormal than what we had when we were kids."

"But, like, just because she wasn't hitting you doesn't mean she doesn't suck as a person."

"Oh, I totally agree with you. But it was different from what we had before. And it was better in a lot of ways. I mean, you see the house, right? I grew up with all of this, and room to play in and books to read if I wanted to and food to eat, even if it wasn't very exciting all the time. I grew up around other kids and I had a couple of friends and one best friend, and that's way better than it could have been. I'm not naïve, you know, like I don't look at my life and say, 'wow nothing could have made this better, my life has been perfect,' but I do know that I've been pretty lucky compared to other people. Other people never have hope, and I always did, even when I was feeling my worst. Other people are all alone, and I was neglected, but I wasn't alone. That doesn't make up for how Nola treated me, not entirely, but it does mean something. It means a lot more than just something. I'm lucky to be alive, and I'll never forget that."

Susie squinted down at me, then over across the lawn to the gatehouse. A breeze picked up and I watched the treetop sway in and out of the break in the branches.

"They hit you? Really?" her voice was quieter now.

"Does that surprise you?"

"No. I mean, a little," she was silent for a long moment. "In school in health class, we read this article about addiction and how it's a disease, really, like cancer or something, and how being an addict is like being a cancer patient except you're addicted to your cancer, and I don't know…Liam never really talks about Dad, and he sure as hell doesn't talk about Mom, but I always thought it was like that for them. Like they were good people who had this disease and couldn't help themselves, you know?"

"Maybe. Maybe that's true."

"Wouldn't you want to find out?"

"No. I don't."

"Why not?" A week ago, she would have been frustrated and angry with me, but her voice was still quiet. I looked up to see her lip shaking, and because she was like Billy, I didn't put my hand out to touch her. As unforgiveable as almost crying was, it was nothing like the sin of actually crying.

"If I give them the chance and I'm wrong, they'll break my heart. If I give them the chance and I'm right, they'll break my heart. I'd rather come back here and face Nola again than ever see our parents, I'd rather do that a thousand times than see our parents. I'd rather grow up here in exactly the same way a second time than ask our mother if she's really a good person."

She nodded, her face staring directly down at the dirt underneath her. Her lip was still wobbling, but she had set her jaw firmly.

"We have a good thing in Uncle Liam, Sus. He's the best parent we could hope for. Don't wish yourself a wildcard just because he's not our real dad." I thought about Tom and Ned and Dr Bertram, arranged in a triangle in every room they shared. Good fathers were hard to come by.

"Ned, what did the doctors really say about Tom?" We were in his room again, and I was watching him carefully fold his laundry. He had a system, and his shirts were perfect squares, the collars and cuffs hidden away within themselves. I had always loved to watch him when he was working unconsciously. He always seemed happiest when he wasn't thinking. I curled my feet up on his old couch as he sighed and began to work on partnering his socks.

"Well, it's better, like I told you. He's waking up regularly and staying awake for a little, just like Mom said. But it's not clear, I mean the brain damage, if there is any, or the bone damage, if that's permanent, or the kidney failure, if that's permanent. It's a lot of 'wait and see.'"

"Your mom didn't seem worried."

His mouth twisted in a half grin, "I'm not sure she knows everything about Tom's condition. Dad's worried it'll cause a setback for her, upset her too much, but there's no reason you can't know about it."

I nodded, and we fell into companionable silence again as he rolled his socks two by two.

"You did great in there," Ned said finally, throwing down his last pair of socks and regarding me from across the room.

"Thanks."

"No, I mean it. You did."

"I would never have been able to do it without all of you."

Ned's brow furrowed and he folded his arms. "What's with the self-deprecation? Did you expect yourself to walk up to Nola, guns blazing, and tell her she can go to hell?"

"Expect myself? No. Not really."

"But you wish you had."

"I don't know," I shrugged.

"Oh, no. Don't give me that," Ned sounded so much like Billy for a moment that I looked up at him in shock. His back was straight, and he watched me appraisingly, the promise of a scowl only seconds away. "What did you expect from yourself?"

"I don't know, Ned."

"Yes, you do know, and we both know it. What did you expect from yourself, seeing Nola again?"

"I kind of hoped that I'd be stronger, after everything," I said finally, resenting Ned and Nola and my terrible idea to come here. "I kind of hoped I'd be able to say something that she'd finally respect. I don't know."

"Nola's a bully."

"I know that."

"You think a bully's going to change just because you're not the old you? She's the worst, and you know she always has been. That's not personal, Flannery. She never did it to you because you're wrong or bad. She did it to you because she could and she thought she could get away with it."

"I know that."

"But you still want her to change her mind about you when you say something profound?" His voice was gentler now, and he crossed the distance between us to sit on his coffee table, face to face with me.

"Maybe."

He nodded for a moment, looking down at our feet, just inches apart. "If I were you, or rather, if our positions were reversed, and I was upset that Nola didn't change her mind about me, what would you tell me? What advice would you give?"

I twisted my mouth, annoyed, and he chuckled. He was right and we both knew it. "I'd tell you that she's not worth wasting your energy on because she's not going to change."

"Anything else?"

"I'd probably tell you that all change takes time."

"I'd probably have to listen to you, because that's damn great advice."

I balled up my fist and socked Ned playfully on the shoulder. He grasped his arm in mock pain and fell from the coffee table to the floor. "Admit it, I'm brilliant," he shot up at me with a grin, and I found myself smiling somewhat reluctantly.

"Yes, yes, brilliant."

"And going to be the best minister."

"Yes, yes, the very best."

"And so good at advice."

"Yes, yes, so good." I held out my hand to help him up, and his weight against mine threw me off balance for a moment. He steadied me with his arms, and, grinning, looked down into my eyes.

"And I'm so graceful."

I rolled my eyes. There would be no talking to him after this.

In the end, I had to show them the attic room. Billy and Ned walked a few steps behind Susie and me as Dr Grant, now grey and paunchier than he had been, led us down the hallway. He had given me a hug the moment he'd seen who it was at the door, and grinned at me as I explained what we needed. I didn't tell me that that's where I had slept, but he seemed largely unsurprised by my unusual request, so maybe he had always known. Dr Bertram, who had been reading in the front room, had dropped his book and come with us as well. He stood, tall and straight, at the back of our group.

The door pushed open easily, and the familiar wave of summer heat accompanied it. I stepped into the middle of the room with the others behind me, and surveyed my old space. Cardboard boxes, labeled with things like "Family Photos" and "Glassware," stood stacked on top of the old bed and where the chair had been, the chair with the fraying arm that now sat in Dr Grant's office. The old, threadbare Persian rug was still there, with its hole exactly in the same spot, the fading colors giving way to small patches of wood floor beneath. Things I hadn't even attempted to remember were the same as they had always been.

The eave that hung down over the bed was even lower than I had pictured in my mind, and I wondered at myself for not switching around my pillow so that I could sit up without worry. Was it because the pillow had been facing that way when I had moved in, or was it because I wouldn't have been facing the door if I'd changed it around? I didn't remember. Fourteen-year-old Fawn had had strong opinions against change, that's all I knew.

In spite of myself, I felt a surge of affection for this room, this sagging bed, this faded rug. It was full of sunshine, and hot as hell, and I remembered most of all the feelings of relief I'd had when Nola had put me as far away from herself as she could do. In a way, she had saved me from herself without intending to.

"You slept here?" Susie asked, and the disgust in her voice surprised me so much that I turned to see my siblings and the attendant Bertrams looking very grim. A muscle twitched in Billy's jaw, but it was the shock on Dr Bertram's face that surprised me the most.

"From when I was fourteen to when I was eighteen," I said. "I actually liked it up here. It had character, but you'd need to move the boxes and replace the chair to see it, I think."

"It was warm in the winter, at least?" Dr Bertram's brow was furrowed with anger now.

"Uh, well, no," I said, a bit taken aback, "but the blankets I had were really warm, though, so—"

"And your aunt couldn't have known how cold it was up here, yes? Since you couldn't tell her."

I didn't know how to answer that. Nola had visited me up here a couple of times to destroy some of my things, and at least one of those times was during the winter. She'd known what this place was like. I hesitated to answer, and the look that the four men exchanged was troubling.

When the silence had gone on for a bit too long, Dr Bertram glanced at my sister and me and gave a polite smile, "Well, then, it's good you came to live with us when you did, isn't it." He turned and swept out of the room, his unhappy feet beating a trail through the thick carpet to the front door and away, leaving me the unhappy faces of most of my favorite people.