Chapter 16: A Seat at the Table

The boy had sent me the whole forty minutes before he left my apartment.

I had played Bianca's little voice twice in the dark, and then I had made myself stop.

Caleb had heard it too, and he had said only, "Keep it somewhere safe."

Aunt Gwen had already booked her flight, and she would swear to every word at the dinner.

Caleb's mother had said alone, so Caleb waited in the car.

She sat me down in the Rainiers' sunroom with a pot of tea and did not touch it.

His father stood by the window with his cardigan sleeves pushed up.

"You promised me the truth," she said. "Soon, you said. It's soon."

I put my hands around the cup.

"I'm going to say it badly," I said. "And you're going to think I'm unwell."

"I'm a mother. I've thought worse."

So I told her.

I told her about the bowl, and the floor, and my mother saying we'd go when Bianca calmed down.

I told her about the night Bianca walked in on her son in the shower, and the treatment center in Switzerland by the end of the week.

I told her I had watched it happen in another life and that I had come back to stop it.

I did not look up while I talked.

When I finished, nobody spoke.

His father cleared his throat.

"Josie, I've been a doctor a long time. People describe vivid dreams after a trauma. It doesn't make them..."

"Dear," his wife said.

"I'm only saying it's a known..."

"Dear. He called me."

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