Rebekkah stepped into the darkened room. She’d known Ella was laid out, but the wake didn’t officially start for another hour. She pulled the door shut as carefully as she could, trying to keep silent. She walked to the end of the room. Tears ran down her cheeks, dripped onto her dress.

“It’s okay to cry, Beks.”

Rebekkah looked around the darkened room; her gaze darted over chairs and flower arrangements until she found her grandmother sitting in a big chair along the side of the room. “Maylene ... I didn’t ... I thought I was alone with”—she looked at Ella—“with ... I thought she was the only one here.”

“She’s not here at all.” Maylene didn’t turn her attention to Rebekkah or come out of the chair. She stayed in the shadows staring at her blood-family, at Ella.

“She shouldn’t have done it.” Rebekkah hated Ella a bit just then. She couldn’t tell anyone, but she did. Her suicide made everyone cry; it made everything wrong. Rebekkah’s mother, Julia, had come unhinged—searching Rebekkah’s room for drugs, reading her journal, clutching her too tight. Jimmy, her stepdad, had started drinking the day they found Ella, and as far as Rebekkah could see, he hadn’t stopped yet.

Maylene’s voice was a whisper in the dark: “Come here.”

Rebekkah went over and let Maylene pull her into a rose-scented embrace. Maylene stroked her hair and whispered soft words in a language Rebekkah didn’t know, and Rebekkah wept all the tears she’d been holding on to.

When she stopped, Maylene opened up her giant handbag and pulled out a silver flask that was etched with roses and vines that twisted into initials, A.B.

“Bitter medicine.” Maylene tipped it back and swallowed. Then she held it out.