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By Root 927 0

has no other secrets? When I was a kid . . . But even now, even with Go-Go dead, it feels like a betrayal. They are not supposed to talk about this. Even with his mother, in the weeks since Go-Go’s death, they have strenuously avoided the topic. “You don’t think—” his mother said the weekend after the funeral, when everyone else’s lives were going back to normal and they were left alone in their new normal, this territory of grief, whose boundaries lie far beyond their range of vision, making it impossible to know how long they will be here, if they will ever leave. “No,” he said. He didn’t think it was a suicide. He didn’t think it had anything to do with what happened when Go-Go was nine because why now? It made no sense. He got drunk. He cracked up his car. End of story.

His conversation with Gwen has nowhere to go, but they make a stab at it. They talk idly about their children, schools, whether they fit the definition of helicopter parents, although they’re both pretty sure they don’t. Gwen wraps a strand of hair around her finger, a habit he remembers from childhood. She’s going to do whatever she wants. She always has. A moment ago, when she mentioned breaking up with Sean, Tim almost blurted out what he has always known about his brother: Sean was relieved that Gwen broke up with him because he was terrified of her, of sex. Oh, Sean wanted to have sex. But not with Gwen, because she was too scary-good at getting what she wanted, and what if she wanted to be his only girl, ever? As a newly pretty girl, Gwen was rough with her power, as reckless in her own way as Go-Go. She was like a child discovering a loaded gun in Daddy’s nightstand. Even if nothing happens, the sight is terror enough, the weapon juggling in those small hands, so many possible outcomes, almost all bad.

As a woman, she is smoother, but still not as smooth as she thinks she is. She will do whatever she wants, with no regard for anyone’s feelings. She always has.

Chapter Thirty-two

Rita can tell it’s going to be a bad day even before she opens her eyes. She feels it in her bones. Well, technically, she feels it in her joints, which are not the same thing as bones, as she now knows, thanks to all those smarty-pants doctors, men younger than her, who could be the very residents who used to undertip her at Connolly’s. In spite of herself, Rita has learned a lot about the body, her body. She could probably pass whatever test people have to take for medical school from all the tedious blah, blah, blah about her joints, tendons, lining, inflammation. Her situation boils down to this: She hurts. A lot.

Besides, Rita has no desire to go to medical school, so having all this information at her fingertips—her swollen, clumsy, useless fingertips—is like being asked to familiarize yourself with the life story of a person who ran you down with a car. What’s the point of understanding a disease when the disease can’t be cured? Rita has to settle for managing her rheumatoid arthritis. Her doctor keeps trying various drugs in new combinations. A little more of this, a little less of this. Wait, this is interacting badly with that. He reminds her of Mickey as a child, busily arranging spindly wildflowers in a jar, the stems wilting, the blossoms drooping from all her handling. Meanwhile, Rita can’t find a sleep drug that works. Even with Ambien, her sleep is thin, barely sleep at all.

She bets her doctor sleeps beautifully. Probably has one of those special beds—the one designed for astronauts, or the one with the individual controls. There’s not a bed in the world that could help Rita sleep better. Rita, who could sleep sitting up, in a car, even on her feet once upon a time. She tried a water bed after she was diagnosed, thinking the heat would help, but it was a bust. She gave it to Joey, who gave it to Mickey, which pissed her off a little. “If I want your sister to have something, I’ll give it to her,” she told Joey. “But you never want her to have anything,” he pointed out. Not exactly true. It’s just that anything Rita has to give, she always