E l y s e his is it. The last letter. The one he warned me was coming. And I’m actually frightened to read it. I’m scared that whatever grenade lies in this envelope will explode and blow up these tiny green shoots of hope I’ve been nursing where any future with Sinclair is concerned. As has been my ritual this past month, I shut myself in the bedroom I share with Sylvie and sit on my bed before sliding my thumb under the wax seal. It pops cleanly off the expensive paper. I take out the letter and begin to read. I’m barely half a page in when his confession hits, and I give an in voluntary groan before clamping my hand over my mouth in horror, my eyes tracing the neat lines of cursive wildly. Oh my God, no. He did not do that. I can see and hear the scene so clearly: the dark, winding lane; the moment of impact; the skid of his bicycle wheels on tarmac as that poor, terrified woman screamed at him to help her, not to abandon her there, in the middle of the road. I stand up and fan myself with the letter because this is way too close to fucking home for my liking. Still standing, I read on. So his parents cleaned up the mess. Of course they fucking did. This is definitely the least surprising part of the story. I read on. Jesus H. Christ, it gets worse. She was freaking pregnant? Oh my God. This is horrific. And shit. He’s brought up Sylvie. But honestly— good. I didn’t see this coming. Obviously, I figured after I heard about their little showdown that seeing her in her wheelchair might knock some level of sense into him, might finally make him understand the gross disservice he did my family. But I didn’t realize that seeing her like that would drag a far older crime—and my guess is that what he did was literally a crime— into the light of the present day. He must have stood there on the sidewalk and looked up at my sister and seen that woman lying on the road. And if that gave him a moment of long-overdue reckoning, then all I can say is good. This is the guy I sent pie to a couple nights ago. If I could snatch that pie back right now, I would. I’m sickened by this. Sickened. How many nights have I wasted over the past six months, lying in bed and fuming, tied up with anger that’s neither productive nor manageable when I think about the person who ran their fucking car into my sister’s bike and knocked her twenty fucking feet down the street and left her there for dead? Countless, is the answer. Countless nights filled with fantasies of revenge so bloodthirsty that every one is undoubtedly a felony. The anger I have felt threatens to burn me up, sometimes. It’s the worst kind, because it’s so totally helpless, and it has nowhere to go, no outlet, exc ept for lavishing every last bit of energy I have on my sister, for showing her so much care that perhaps it will make up for the total lack of care that that asshole in that car showed to her.
But this kind of anger has a different flavor. For once, I’m not mad at a driver I don’t know, or a billionaire I do know—full-grown adults who should know better. I’m mad at a fifteen-year-old kid. And he may have been spoiled and entitled, with genuine assholes for parents, but he was still a kid. I’m not sure how I can feel sick for the woman he injured—the pregnant woman, remember—and for the terrified little boy who fled the scene, but I am, and it makes me uncomfortable. One thing I know for sure: I have no clue what to do with this information. No freaking clue. He’s shared the one thing that would upset me more than what he did to me, and he’s asking me to formulate some kind of, what, mature, balanced response? Actually, that’s not fair. He’s not asking for anything. Not action. Not even forgiveness. He’s just telling me. And honestly, it’s a ballsy move for a guy who’s fucked up so badly to ke ep on piling on with the bad stuff in the hope, I assume, that by his confessing absolutely everything, I’ll finally be able to make a decision based on knowing him properly, warts and all. Jeez, if these warts aren’t seriously awful. And now I’m going to have to do something that’s not fair and get my sister in volved. I’m going to have to show her a letter that might seriously trigger her, a week before Christmas, simply because I’m in so far over my head with this shit that I can’t handle this alone. I go outside and send A. J. away with some meatloaf. This is not a r eply kind of evening. I DON ’ T GET Sylvie alone until after we’ve packed Fleur off to bed and Dad has retired, too. On the nights I’m not at Alchemy and he doesn’t have to come pick me up from the PATH at stupid o’clock, he tends to turn in early to catch up on his sle ep. This evening, we’ve been getting crafty with Fleur, making réveillon invitations, paper napkin holders, and general holiday decorations. The French custom of celebrating on Christmas Eve—the réveillon—is one of our most dearly guarded customs. It’s possible we celebrate it with even more verve than we did when Maman was alive, but, in all honesty, I’ve always been a huge fan. When I was a kid, Sylvie and I would always fight over who got to put the Baby Jesus into the crib at midnight. Now it’s always Fleur’s job. She’ll insist on staying up, half drunk on tiredness and excitement and too much bûche de Noël—yule log and something we’ll bake from scratch in the week ahead. It will be just us plus Glo and Reggie, who will spend Christmas Day with Glo’s brother but love any chance for an extra get-together. Having them here helps. It helps make the spare chair that we put at the table for Maman just that tiny bit less awful. The réveillon invitations are pretty and festive and very, very sparkly. I’ll mail Glo and Reggie’s through their mailbox tomorrow. They like to pin Fleur’s handiwork to their corkboard. The dining table is spattered with red and green glitter, even though most of it seemed to make its way into Fleur’s hair. “What has you so jittery?” Sylvie wants to know as soon as Dad has gone through to his room with Jambon, but not before pressing a kiss to the crown of each of our heads. I’m hovering next to her at the table, letter behind my back. I sigh. “Okay, so I need to show you something.” I produce the letter. “I seriously need advice.”
Her brows wing up. “Seriously? I get to read one?” I’ve been filling her in on some of the smaller details of his other ones, but I’ve k ept a lot to myself. Between paying me for sex and all of his dodgy business dealings, there’s not a lot that’s shareable. She knows he’s been doing therapy, and she knows he’s finally grown to understand the severity of his betrayal of me. She also knows that he told me he loved me. “You do, but I have to tell you something first, and then you can decide whether to read it. This is a big confession that he wanted to get off his chest, but it’s a tough read. When he was a kid, he knocked a woman over on his bike one night—and he didn’t stop.” I let that land between us for a moment. Sylvie closes her eyes briefly. “Of course he fucking did.” “It gets worse. His parents paid the victim off and made it all go away— and she was pregnant. It’s okay,” I say quickly at the sight of her expression. “The baby was fine. But it’s a lot.” She holds her hand out. “Give me the fucking letter.” I slide into the seat next to her and watch as she reads it. To say my sister has an expressive face is an understatement, and it’s quite the show, watching the various levels of judgment that pass over it as she takes in Sinclair’s confession. Finally, she throws it down onto the table. “What a bunch of assholes.” “Yeah.” I watch her carefully. She blows out a breath and puts her face in her hands. “Jesus,” she mumbles through her fingers. “Poor woman. If that would have happened to me when I was pregnant, I... I dunno. And she was alone. I wonder how long she was on her own.” She looks up and shivers. My sister’s injuries were far worse than Maria’s, but she was also tended to immediately by passersby. I can’t imagine what it would have been like for her, not knowing if the boy who’d hit her would be as good as his word, not knowing whether anyone would come for her, whether her baby had been harmed. Sylvie slides the letter toward her again with her fingertips. “The issue isn’t that he ran away, though. I mean, it’s not great, but he was a kid. I don’t think any parent wants to think about what their kid would do in that situation, but, much as I dislike this dude, I don’t know for sure that Fleur would be strong enough to stay in ten years’ time. I mean, I just have no clue.” I stare at her. “I think she’d stay.” “Really? On a dark road in the middle of nowhere, where some woman is screaming in agony? I hate to say it, but I think a lot of kids would run. And he went and got his parents straight away. It wasn’t like he hid under the covers and pretended nothing had happened.” “True,” I say slowly. “I thought you’d be less... forgiving.” “I mean, the part of me who got thrown across the street and left for fucking dead wants to punch someone in the face.” She picks up the letter and waves it at me. “Unfortunately, the part of me who’s a mom feels a little
bad for this kid. How old was he—fourteen? Fifteen?” “Fifteen, I think. He’s thirty-six.” She makes a face like, Exactly. “And he st epped forward eventually. Like, twenty years too late, but still. Right now, the only people I want to punch are his asshole parents.” I throw up my hands. “Right? Thank you!” “I mean, what the fuck? The protecting-your-kid part I get, but brushing the whole thing under the carpet and getting some fixer to deal with it? That’s messed up. I would march Fleur into that hospital so quickly and make her look that woman in the face and apologize. You have to learn to take responsibility for your actions, and I don’t think you get a better teaching moment than a fuck-up like that.” “I totally agree,” I say. “No wonder it’s taken him another twenty years to understand what the word consequences means.” “It’s more than that, I think,” she says. “It’s like they don’t think anyone else’s life has as much value as their family’s? So they shut this down. Poor old Maria gets stitched up and paid up and told to shut up, while darling Sinclair’s route to Princeton, or wherever the fuck he went, remains a straight fucking road. No blemishes on that résumé.” “It was Yale,” I say automatically, and she snorts. “Of course it was.” “You’re right, though.” I look down at my hands as I consider that that’s exactly how he treated me: like everyone else’s needs and wants are expendable if they get in the way of his. “That’s exactly how it feels. They did him a huge disservice.” “Him, and everyone who’s had to deal with his bullshit ever since,” she says. She looks back down at the letter and starts to laugh. “What?” “It’s just—it sounds like he was fucking terrified to tell you. It’s funny, that’s all, because I think what he did to you last month is worse, in some ways. I say worse because it’s not like you can judge a freaked-out kid and a grown-ass man by the same standards. But that kind of makes it sweeter that he felt he had to tell you. He really is getting it all off his chest, huh?” I give her a decisive nod. “Oh, yeah. He really is.” “You think he’ll actually go see her? His victim?” “The letter was dated yesterday,” I say. “So I guess he already has.” She looks down at the date. “Huh. I wonder how it went down. Boy, would I like to have been a fly on the wall in that room.” I laugh despite myself. My sister is a piece of work. Then I hesitate. “I think I’d like to give him another chance.”
Her head jerks up. “Are you being serious?” “Yeah. Let me show you the last one.” Before she can r eply, I duck into our room and grab the previous letter. The one that makes me think he’s gained a little wisdom and a lot of perspective since he betrayed me over that campaign. Sylvie takes it with an unimpressed twist of her mouth and begins to read. As she reads, her face softens. “Okay, he’s smooth. Clearly, Yale was good for something. Hang on—I was honestly just pissed that I hadn’t gotten away with it? That’s hilarious. He seriously has zero fucks left to give, right?” “I think, at this point, he’s making the call that the truth can’t be any worse than all the lying. And I think he’s also de ep in emotional purging territory. Like, he hasn’t even asked me to forgive him—not at any point. He’s just trying to lay it all out there.” “It all reads like he’s one Voss family celebration away from joining an ashram,” Sylvie says, and I snort. “Totally.” She reads the rest of the letter and lays it down. “I mean, no one can accuse him of not owning his shit. I’m surprised he hasn’t called up NBC.” “But this is why I’d like to try again,” I say, leaning forward. “In the same way that we can’t judge him for how he acted when he was fifteen, can we really judge him for acting the way his parents have taught him to act his entire life? Like, here’s an Amex and here’s the fixer’s number, and you’ll be fine as long as you have both of those?” I recall what his therapist said about his being afraid of having an “unpriced transaction” with me. Seems like the guy has been transacting his whole life. “I think he’s very well educated and very compelling.” I raise my eyebrows, like Come on, and she sighs. “But yeah, either he’s a total sociopath or he legit understands how badly he fucked up. So if you think the guy underneath all the Yale bullshit and the Mob-style parenting is worth getting to know properly, then you should give him another chance.” “I don’t know what that looks like,” I say. “Do I unblock him? Text him? Ask him to go for, I dunno, a drink?” Her face turns mischievous. Uh-oh. With one fingertip, she slides a particularly glittery réveillon invitation over to me. “Baptism of fire, baby. If he truly wants to make amends, invite him for Christmas Eve. He wants you, he comes to Jersey.” I hesitate. He probably has fancy rich-person celebrations planned at Fairwater, in volving classy Ralph Lauren holiday sweaters and a tree from the family’s estate. “I can’t invite him without checking with Dad,” I say nervously. The réveillon is a big deal to him, a core memory with Mom. “Ask him in the morning. I think he’ll be thrilled for you.” She taps the invitation. “Seriously. It’s a good litmus test. You’d be doing Sinclair a favor, getting him away from those psychos. Besides, I need the Maria
tea. Do you still have A. J.’s number? This r eply should go on the Vosses’ tab.”