We stood around the car, Susie and Billy and me, staring at the ground, glancing up to the house. The air was wretched—hot and humid and still—the sky overcast and brooding. We had been quiet for a long time.

"You sure about this?" Billy said finally, brows low over his eyes. I looked at Susie and she looked at me and we both nodded. Billy ran his hand up and down the nape of his neck, sighing.

"I'm not really into this as an idea, I gotta say."

"We know," Susie said, but I nudged her before she could roll her eyes.

"She'll be back for the start of the school year," I promised.

"And you? When will you be back?" His frown was thunderous.

"The same time. I promise."

"Pinkyswear or no dice." We swore, solemnly, in a circle.

"Go home, Billy-boy," Susie drawled. "Go stay all employed and whatnot."

Billy grinned for a moment, flashing us his freckled, dimpled smile. I hadn't seen it in months, I realized. "Just cause you're all unemployed and whatnot."

"I'm twelve. It's Flan that has no excuse," Susie nudged me and I reached out to push her over.

"Go home, Billy. Call us when you get there." He grabbed us both up into a bear hug, taking extra time to swing us both a little bit, then, frowning, got into his car and turned it down the long drive out away from Mansfield, toward real life. He kicked up a small cloud of dust as he went, and we watched the last of the haze dissipate before we looked back at each other.

"Do you actually think there's anything we can do to help?" Susie's eyes were squinted in deep thought. We'd put up a front of certainty in front of Billy, but a general sense of futility had been following us around all day.

"Well, we can't find Mireille, and no one can get through to Julia, so she really won't want to talk to me, even if I can talk to her on the phone, which I might not be able to do. I say we take turns with Ned and Mrs Bertram. One of us goes to visit Tom with Ned. Just be there to support him."

"I don't think Mary likes me very much."

"I think it's our whole family she doesn't like."

"Really?" Susie turned to me, eyes wide. "She basically falls all over herself complimenting you whenever you're around."

I sighed, scuffing my feet on the driveway. "Watch to see if Ned's there whenever she does it." It was the first time in my life I'd actually spoken my doubts out loud. Susie's grimace of understanding was more than gratifying, more than a little grown up.

I slung my arm around her reedy shoulders and turned her toward the house, determined to put on a brave face. "Come on, Sus. Time and tide."

As we walked toward the house, I saw Aunt Nola glaring at us from a second story window. I looked away, determined to ignore her.

Susie stuck out her tongue.

The problem, the real problem, was that no one had any idea where Mireille and Henry would have gone. With Julia not communicating—a fact that sent Mrs Bertram into a flurry of tears with every failed attempt—and Mary largely still unconcerned, no one, not even Nola, had any idea where Mireille might go if she didn't want to be found. Dr Bertram had called every single person he knew who might have seen her, contacted all friends overseas with summer homes and expansive seaside cottages, but nothing had emerged. For all intents and purposes, Mireille and Henry were gone.

Knowing Mireille's sense of self-preservation, and knowing Henry as I did, I had no real fears for Mireille's safety. Nor did I care, really, that Mireille had left her husband for another man. Mary had been right—we had all seen that coming from miles away. Rush wasn't the kind of person who would inspire someone like Mireille to fidelity. Watching the way her family worried, though, and the lengths to which they went to find her, what struck me more than anything was how inconsiderate they both had been. If they were trying to cause as much damage as possible, they were succeeding. If they weren't trying to hurt anyone, they were phenomenally selfish.

The only papers that picked up on the story were the kind that reported on little-known socialites' behavior to other little-known socialites; not the kind of papers anyone I knew really wanted to read. The scandal, if there was one, was small, would be blown over in a few weeks. At some point, no one would even remember that Mireille Bertram had been married to Rush, or even that she had had an affair with Henry Crawford, if, indeed, they had ever known it in the first place. In terms of social standing, the Bertrams would continue doing just fine.

But on the family level, each one was struggling. Mrs Bertram was open in her grief, going through mounds of photos I had never seen of her oldest daughter, photos of Mireille young and smiling, a Mireille I had never experienced. On her couch in her parlor, Mrs Bertram sat up for hours, remarkably lucid, and pored over memories, turning to share them with Susie or Ned or Mary or me. She reached out in her grief, bringing us into it to share it together.

Aunt Nola, on the other hand, was livid, and walked around as if she were a bomb set to explode. She had introduced Mireille and Rush, and had pushed them together as hard as she could. Later, after the wedding, she had bragged about her matchmaking success, and now here we were, in the fallout, her beloved Mireille gone, and her triumph gone with her. I avoided Nola as much as possible, and Ned and Susie flanked me during every family gathering.

It was Ned and Dr Bertram who worried me the most, though. Dr Bertram, so tall in all my memories of him, seemed diminished now, stooped, crooked. His face was pale and his jaw was set, another reminder of Tom. He barely spoke to anyone, and when he did, it was in clipped, short sentences. Ned had thrown himself into helping his family. He visited Tom, he spent hours with his mother, he tried contacting Julia, he organized dinner and kept the house running. He and Mary were always together, but it seemed as though they never actually talked to each other. When we were together, his eyes were always cast down in thought. Guilt hung heavy over him, and there was nothing we could do but be next to him.

Time at Mansfield had always been strange. It began to stretch, as it always had, into long, languorous days, directionless and empty, only now it was Ned who couldn't sit still, and Dr Bertram who wandered aimlessly from room to room, and Mrs Bertram who put her book down midsentence to stare blankly at some corner of the parlor, lost in thought. Nola took long strolls under the trees, her fists clenched. Susie and I, by contrast, seemed to be always busy, cleaning, shopping, offering to run errands, answering the phone. We sat by Tom's bedside as his condition improved, as he began to stay awake for the better part of days. For the first week or two, while the tension still ran high, Susie and I kept our heads down and watched as what was left of the Bertram family tried to make sense of everything that had happened.

But, strangely, the longer Mireille was gone, the more the tension eased, little by little. The fact that we had heard nothing from her was actually a good thing, since she only called when something was wrong. Fears were finally put to rest when Julia called after two and a half weeks of radio silence to tell us, in a frightfully casual way, that she and Tom's friend Yates were now together, were now summering in the Hampdens. She had talked to Mireille just the other day, and she and Henry were both fine. Frowns lifted, the air cleared bit by bit, but the silence still hung over us all, thick and cold.

I found Dr Bertram downstairs one day, alone, facing the wall of my paintings that apparently had not been moved since I had left. The downstairs living room had become a gallery of sorts, one I'd avoided as best I could. I passed by the doorway, only to find him, back to me, arms crossed, staring at the painting that had disturbed Ned so much. I wavered, tempted to run upstairs silently and leave him alone, but then he sighed, and I found myself just within the doorway.

"Sir?"

He turned to me, unsurprised. "You really are talented."

I grimaced a bit, "Were talented, I think is more accurate. I haven't really painted much since I left."

"That's a shame."

I shrugged. "I guess it's common for people like me. Once we start talking, we don't need to paint as much. That's what they say, anyway."

He turned back around to the painting, and for a long time we stood in silence. Finally, without turning, he said "Ned told me what this painting was. What all your paintings are."

I took a deep breath. "A few of them are good memories, sir."

"But most of them aren't."

It wasn't a question, so I didn't need to answer. I watched him, the way he held his shoulders, the way his back rose and fell with each breath.

"You weren't happy here," he said, finally.

"I wouldn't have been happy anywhere."

"You think that's true?"

"No. I was just trying to make you feel better."

Now he turned to me, arms still crossed, face creased in a scowl that was somehow unintimidating. "It is not your job to console me. I don't need to be placated. Remember that, Flannery."

"Yes, sir."

He looked away from me, out the window, to where the sun was spreading itself out across the park. "I find myself in a bit of a quandary now. I have four children, and only one of them is safe and sound and still speaking to me. I have given them everything I never had as a child—educations, opportunities, a home to live in, a potential future—and after all of that I find that I don't know any of them at all. My daughters seem perfectly happy to disappear from our lives with no thought to our well-being, and my sons, well, my sons want to be anyone but my sons. I'm trying to think of what I've done wrong, but it's either that I've done nothing wrong or I've done everything wrong and there is no middle ground. And then there's you."

I blinked at him. I hadn't been prepared for this kind of candor. Not from him.

"I never paid much attention to you, never made sure you were educated, never made sure you ate food, never cared whether you were coming or going, and yet here you are, helping. And I find…" he trailed off for a moment, glancing at a small, square painting with a riot of yellows and greens in the bottom right corner, "I find that I know you better than I know my own children. And that disturbs me."

"I can't help you, sir. I know you better than I know my father, better than I know my uncle." The words were out, and true, before I could consider them.

His face crumpled for a moment, and he seemed to stare at the back of the couch for a moment before lifting his eyes again, his face smooth and expressionless. I tried to think He used to be a child who didn't have a home, and I tried to think He used to be uneducated, but I couldn't see it. All I saw was Dr Bertram, lines deepening on his face, his posture stiff and straight.

"I never thanked you for coming back, did I?" His eyes were on me again, somehow softer, considering.

I shook my head, smiling a little. "In the interest of not placating you, sir, I never expected you to thank me."

He nodded, grunting slightly, and the ghost of a smile crept over his face. Then, silently, he reached out his hand to me, and I crossed the three steps it took to put my hand in his to shake, hand firm the way he had taught me.

Tom clicked the remote, far harder than it needed. I raised my eyebrows at him, and he glared at me, tossing the remote down on the bed in mock defeat.

"Do not give me that look, Price, I'm bored out of my mind. Kill me, put me out of my misery." He laid his head back down on the pillow."

"And miss you being grumpy and rude? What would I do with myself then?"

Tom had been improving steadily, much more rapidly than the doctors had presumed. He was awake most of the day now, and in a foul temper most of that time as well. Ned was more empathetic, trying to play games with Tom or tell him stories to break up the monotony. I, on the other hand, got some strange enjoyment of out Tom's complaining. After the silence of Mansfield, Tom's open displeasure with most things was almost fun.

"At least spare me another game of Go Fish. If I have to play that one more time, I'm throwing myself out the window."

"You have only played that one time, and you asked to play, so don't give me that. And you should know that Ned stays up late trying to research new games for you, so try to focus on being grateful, yeah?" Susie had her feet propped up on Tom's hospital bed, and she sent Tom a look of fond exasperation. Both sarcastic and too intelligent for their own good, Susie and Tom had hit it off from the moment he could summon up the energy to communicate.

"Pssh, grateful," Tom muttered, but a fond little smile played around his mouth. "Neddy-boy probably sent you two harpies in here to butter me up before we get to play a rousing game of Hungry Hungry Hippos."

"I don't know what that is," I said. Susie and Tom stared at me incredulously.

"We used to play it all the time, Price." Tom's voice was wounded.

"I didn't live in Mansfield growing up, remember?"

"Yeah, she was stuck in the attic next door like Harry Potter," Susie added.

"That was a cupboard, my darling. A cupboard." Tom gave Susie a condescending pat on the knee. "I would have thought you would know that."

"It was a comparison, not a literal thing."

"A better comparison would be Bertha Rochester, but you're probably too young for Jane Eyre, and what the hell is this about an attic?"

"Long story," I said, trying to glare my sister into silence. She ignored me.

"Not too long, actually. Nola made Flan live in her attic for four years instead of giving her a real room, and she made Flan stay in there whenever you guys were doing anything fun, like parties or Thanksgiving."

Tom's jaw was set now, and he stared between us, blinking angrily. "She always said you didn't want to come down. That you didn't like crowds and you wanted to be alone."

"She wasn't wrong," I pointed out.

"She wasn't right, either, apparently." Tom shook his head. "That old bitch."

There was a silence as we all tried to figure out a way to change the subject and failed miserably. Finally, Tom said, "Where is Neddy, by the way?"

"He's coming. He and Mary were going to grab us all some food from that Thai place. They should be here any minute."

"Mary. Shit." Tom put his head back down on the pillow. "Pretend I'm dead."

Susie cackled. "Should I pull the plug now, or wait until she gets into the room for dramatic effect?"

"She's her own dramatic effect. You don't need to help her out."

"Touché."

Tom arranged himself on the pillow again, closing his eyes and settling his face into something resembling a wistful invalid in an old movie.

Susie and I exchanged a look. "You were serious?" I couldn't help but laugh at his near-pious expression.

"Dead serious. If she comes in and sees me awake, I'm going to have to actually talk to her. You can deal with her, Price. Tell her all the cool things you've been up to. Make sure to include the part where you tell her brother to go to hell, I'm sure she'll love that one."

"Gee, thanks."

He winked at us and settled back down. The Fast and the Furious blared in the background.

Not two minutes later, Ned and Mary walked into the room, arms full of takeout, frowns on their faces. Ned glanced at Tom suspiciously, then settled down next to me.

"Not awake, yet?" Mary asked, perching on a chair by the table, opening her bag to hand around food. "He's always asleep at weird times of the day."

I accepted my food and the fork she handed me, determined not to give away Tom's secret.

I opened my tin of Pad Thai, putting the plastic on the bottom to cover over the hot foil. Glancing at Tom's perfectly still, totally angelic face made me cough to cover up a laugh, but the silence was quickly becoming deafening, even with Vin Diesel in the background. Ned shifted uncomfortably, turning his noodles over with his chopsticks to cool them. Susie made a face at me, and I shrugged my shoulders slightly in response. For all the time we had spent together, Ned hadn't said anything else about his and Mary's relationship since we'd arrived. From what I had seen of them, they were always perfectly cordial to each other in my presence, but for the past few days had actually said very little to each other.

"How's your food, Fawn?" Mary didn't look up from her dish. Susie made a slight growling noise in the back of her throat, but no one said anything else.

"Fine. Delicious. Thank you."

"Not like you can screw up Pad Thai, I guess, but this laab salad isn't as good as Thai Paradise. But Ned insisted."

Susie stopped chewing for a moment, her eyes darting between Ned and Mary nervously. I scooped up my food mechanically, digging around in the noodles for more chicken. Next to me, Ned sighed and put his chopsticks down.

"I've always thought Thai Paradise and Tum Rup were pretty similar in quality," I said quietly, possibly foolishly.

Mary smiled briefly, her laugh exiting her nose in a huff. "Well, of course you would think that, since you always get Pad Thai, any restaurant is going to seem just fine. But for the more complicated dishes, the more specialized, authentic ones, Thai Paradise is better." She placed her tin, not even half empty, on the table and wiped her hands together as if to clean them.

"Have you ever been to Thailand?" Susie ignored my warning glare, instead sweetly spearing a piece of beef on her plastic tines. "How do you know what's authentic and what's not?"

Mary let out a breath of air through her nose that was so exasperated both Susie and I raised our eyebrows in alarm. Ned put his dish down and took a deep breath, leaning forward in his chair. "Flannery, Susie, would you mind leaving us alone for a moment?"

Before Ned had even finished his sentence, Susie was up at out of her chair, throwing a wary glance over her shoulder at Mary as she collected her things to leave. Ned wouldn't meet my eyes as we headed toward the door, and Tom, still pretending to be asleep, hadn't moved a muscle.

We finished our cold takeout in the clinical cafeteria, sunlight warring with fluorescents.

By the time we made our way back to Mansfield, Mary was gone.