The sisters were in the backyard. It was May, and the air was warm. A blanket was laid out in the grass, and all around them, lining the gate that separated their property from the farmland behind it, stood rows of flowers in bloom. Birds flew across the yard and into the collection of birdhouses hanging above the porch. Their wings shook the miniature houses as they fed on the seed inside. Then, as a group, they returned to a nearby branch. Madeline, the younger of the two by nine years, was sitting upright on the blanket, holding her lemonade with two hands. She had stringy blonde hair and a gap between her front teeth. She was only seven, but she understood that when the birds on the branch began to wildly chirp it was because they were worried. A bird emerged from one of the houses and rejoined its flock. Madeline exhaled as she watched them fly off together. She looked at her sister to see if she’d been watching. But Jeannette wasn’t paying attention. She was lying on her back reading a book folded in half. Her lemonade glass was already empty, tipped over in the grass. There was a fly smashing against the inside as it tried to find its way out again. Madeline noticed that the fly was struggling and reached across her sister, nudging the book in her hands as she took the glass and shook it, setting the fly free. Jeannette groaned as she fixed the book. She’d almost dropped it and lost her page.

“What’d you do that for?” Jeannette said.

“A bug was stuck,” Madeline said. “It was going to die.”

“All right,” Jeannette said, then she went back to reading.

Madeline finished her own lemonade and turned the cup upside down. Then she heard a car pull into the driveway on the other side of the house. Madeline knew it was Bridget, their new babysitter arriving. Jeannette pretended not to notice. She was at the part in her book where the narrator was crawling into a cellar beneath the house, but her mind went wandering, and as she read down the page, she didn’t realize the cellar was turning into a grave. Instead she was thinking about the pills in her closet.

Madeline walked two fingers across the top of Jeannette’s book. “Can you push me?” she said.

“What was that?” Jeannette said. She looked at the page she’d been reading, of which she remembered nothing, and then at her sister, who was pointing at the old swing set. “Oh, yes,” she said. She laid her book down and leaned toward her sister. She whispered, “But I’m going to send you to the moon. Are you sure you want me to push you?”

Madeline mimicked her. She leaned in and whispered, “I like the moon.”

Jeannette laughed. “Okay,” she said. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Madeline ran to the swings and plopped herself down, her bare feet hanging inches off the ground. Jeannette stood behind her and began to push her back, but she didn’t push hard. The swing squeaked underneath the weight and movement, and Madeline giggled, calling “faster faster faster” as Jeannette sent her soaring into the air. Beneath Jeannette’s feet, on the back end of the swings, the pine needles that had collected on the ground were piercing into her soles, and it hurt, but she liked to hear her sister laugh. Jeannette said, “You’re heading off now. Remember to say hi to Sylvie Sue and the moon kids for me,” and then she remembered when she was small, kicking on the same swing while her grandmother pushed her. That was when their grandmother was still their grandmother, not their mother. She was nicer then. When they lived with their real mother, their grandmother would bring presents and books and bags of groceries, because they were often hungry and went without meals. On the best days of her childhood, her mother would say that she needed to run errands and then drop them with the grandmother. She wouldn’t come back for a day or two, sometimes a week, and the grandmother would push Jeannette on the swings for what seemed like hours. Now the monkey bars were rusted, the swings a bit sunken, but they still did the job.

Jeannette pushed her sister and wondered if it would have been better to stay put in that two-bedroom apartment with the mold and mice and their empty stomachs, getting beaten by her drunk mother with the belt. The grandmother would have remained a grandmother, and they would have never discovered that, she too, drank and was not afraid to beat Jeannette. But it was too late. This is where they lived now. There was more space in this house, actual beds, decent food and a backyard to play in, but Jeannette would have accepted less if it had meant that they were escaping to a place where they were loved. Jeannette pushed and pushed and Madeline flew higher and the pine needles hurt, but she didn’t say a word about the pain, and when the grandmother opened the door on the porch and called their names, she would have preferred to stay there, making her baby sister laugh while the soles of her feet burned instead of walking back into that house and standing before the grandmother, wishing she would die already.

◆

When they walked into the kitchen, a young woman was sitting at the table. The grandmother sat across from her, and the girls stood on the tiles. In the adjacent mudroom, there was a suitcase and a few large canvases wrapped in plastic. This weekend, the grandmother would be staying in the city. A gallery on the Upper West Side was showing her exhibition. A series of paintings she’d done of Madeline. Through the wrapping, Jeannette could see her sister sitting in a tree. The grandmother had painted Jeannette once, many years ago. It was small and hanging in a bathroom upstairs.

“This is Bridget,” the grandmother said. “She’s staying here to watch you. Remember?”

“Hello,” Bridget said. “It’s very nice to meet you both.”

The grandmother told the girls to introduce themselves. Madeline was shy at first, but then Bridget asked if there was anything important Madeline wanted her to know before staying the weekend. Madeline said, “I have to think.” Then she rambled on about the size of their backyard and how her hair had grown almost two inches in a month. Then she sang a song about her name that Jeannette had written. Oh Madeline, Madeline, you’ve been so Bad-eline, we’ll have to heat up the oven and bake you into a Good-eline. When she finished singing, Bridget clapped. Madeline wobbled backwards and curtsied in her dress.

Jeannette moved beside her sister. She said, “Try this, Maddy.”

She showed her how to bow with her back straight, chin elevated, both arms pinned neatly around herself as if she were a soldier. Madeline laughed and parroted what she’d learned. Jeannette saluted her and winked. The grandmother repeated “Bravo,” but she was scorching her eyes into Jeannette as if they were branding irons. The grandmother didn’t like how quick Madeline was to obey her sister. It was a fault in her command.

When it came time for Jeannette to introduce herself, she didn’t say her name but instead dove into a series of questions. “Do you know CPR? Are you a sex offender? A convicted felon?”

The grandmother clicked her tongue and said, “That’s enough. This is Jeannette.”

Bridget’s face had turned red. “I’m not a criminal. But I can definitely save someone.”

Jeannette was prepared to ignore the grandmother and ask more questions, but Madeline walked over to Bridget and said, “You kind of look like my mom.”

Jeannette looked at the grandmother to see how she’d react. They rarely ever mentioned their mother around the grandmother. It was an unspoken rule. After months of court dates and endless documents and screaming matches between the mother and grandmother, they were no longer related, but enemies. But it was true. Bridget did somewhat resemble their mother. She had blonde curls cut to her shoulders, green eyes, and a narrow nose with a bump in the middle. Even when she laughed, which she was doing now, there was a similar hiccup. But she was clearly a lot younger than their mother. Their mother had acne scars on her cheeks and wrinkles in her forehead while Bridget had mostly clear skin, minus the two pimples on her chin and a mole on her upper lip. The grandmother shook her head.

“Oh, no she does not,” she said, laughing. “Don’t insult the woman like that, Madeline.”

Jeannette was smiling now. She knew it hurt the grandmother that she’d hired someone who looked like her daughter.

“That’s okay,” Bridget said. “I have a common face.” She ran her palm over the back of Madeline’s head and continued to smile to assure everyone, but most importantly the grandmother, that she would not be any trouble. She’d just moved to the area and desperately needed the work. Her resume was packed with fake babysitting positions and phone numbers that didn’t belong to any previous employers but to her friends who would vouch that she was the best babysitter they’d ever had. But the grandmother never called them. She was relieved about that, though a bit surprised. Over the phone, the grandmother had filled her in on everything that had happened to these girls and how she had saved them. She spoke as if she were excited to hand over such startlingly intimate information—how the teenager had been punched in the mouth one night and then decided she’d had enough, marched into her middle school guidance counselor’s office the following morning and reported her mother for the abuse, showing them the marks on her back and how her bottom lip had been cut. Bridget had made sure to sound sympathetic, but she thought it was strange, the grandmother dumping all of these details on her. And now she thought the eldest was a bit strange, all of those questions. Maybe the family was only being protective. But she wasn’t being paid to investigate. Her hourly rate was twenty dollars to watch the children, and she was staying the whole weekend. She’d be able to pay her rent on Monday.

“Before I head out,” the grandmother said, standing. “It’s time to take your pill, Jeannette.”

Jeannette looked at the digital clock on the microwave and then scowled at her. “But it’s not even five.”

With her back turned to Bridget, the grandmother tightened her face and mouthed the words, “Shut up.” There was a locked box on the counter that only the grandmother, and now Bridget, had the code to. The grandmother made a gesture for Jeannette to turn around, and then she started to twist the dials as Jeannette crossed her arms and stared into the mudroom. She imagined that she was seeing the suitcases for the last time.

“Okay, come on now,” the grandmother said. When Jeanette turned back, they were all staring at her. Madeline was leaning against Bridget, her hands buried under her chin. Bridget’s mouth was bunched to the side and then she looked at the floor. The grandmother was holding a glass of water, the white pill in her hand. She handed it to Jeannette and watched as she swallowed. Then she said, “Good girl. Bridget will give you the second dose later.”

Jeannette, in silence, went into the other room. Madeline sprung from Bridget’s side and chased her sister. As she sped into the living room, Jeannette caught her and tossed a hand over her mouth. Madeline froze and then Jeannette removed her hand. They listened to the grandmother whisper to Bridget. While Madeline’s back was turned, Jeannette removed the pill from beneath her tongue and quickly snuck it into the pocket of her shorts like she’d been doing for the past week.

“Jeannette thinks she knows best,” the grandmother said. “You remember what sixteen was like. You have to be careful with her. I’ve caught her sneaking out to parties in the middle of the night a few times, but she’s not supposed to be drinking on this medication. The psychiatrist told her that, but she doesn’t listen. I usually give her two doses a day. The doctor says she’s supposed to take one in the morning and another at night, but I’ve found that giving her both towards the end of the day is better. Keeps her more subdued.”

Jeannette looked at the mantle beside her head, the row of handblown glass ornaments that were hung there; she wished she could smash them. She held Madeline gently against her body. The girl looked up at her and Jeannette pressed a finger to her lips as a reminder to be quiet. Madeline bobbed her head.

“Got it,” Bridget said. The chair’s back was hurting her spine. She shifted forward. “Anything else I should know?”

“I think that’s all,” the grandmother said. “Madeline will want to spend a lot of time with you. But Jeannette most likely won’t. That’s fine.”

Madeline reached for her sister’s hand and squeezed. She noticed a tear coming down Jeannette’s face, but she wiped it away. Then the chairs moved in the other room, which meant the grandmother was about to leave. She called loudly for the girls to come say goodbye, thinking that they’d gone to their rooms. Jeannette walked across the house and up the stairs. Madeline stood still, watching her sister disappear. Then she went into the kitchen and kissed her grandmother, though she wished she didn’t have to. She was always trying to hold everything together.

◆

Jeannette opened her bedroom door and then slammed it shut. She sank to the floor and put her hands over her eyes. She stared into the dark cave her palms created and took deep breaths. Downstairs, the front door opened and then shut, the chimes that the grandmother had attached to a hook in the wood ringing dully through the rest of the house. Then everything was quiet. She lifted her head and watched as the tree outside her bedroom rocked in the wind. Her junior year was nearly over, which meant there were only sixteen months to go before she could run off to college and leave this place behind. But she knew she wouldn’t complete those applications. She often tried to sleep in class and struggled to finish her homework because her grandmother didn’t allow her much peace. But Jeannette didn’t want to stay here. But she didn’t want to leave her baby sister either. The grandmother was kinder to Madeline because she was still young and obeyed, but Jeannette felt sure that would stop one day.

She heard Madeline run through the house, Bridget’s slow footsteps following behind. Madeline slid her fingers across the piano in the living room as she always did. The dissonance shifted Jeannette out of her sadness and back into the plan. She needed to disappear for a little while. The pills would help her do that and the woman downstairs would look after her sister. She could finally rest now that the grandmother was gone.

Jeannette stood and walked over to her closet. She opened it and reached toward the back. There was a sock buried behind the hanging clothes. Her fingers groped around for it. When she felt it, she pulled it forward and then sat down on the bed. She dug her hand in and grabbed what she’d collected: fourteen pills, two milligrams each. She reached into her pocket and added the new pill to the bunch.

The medication was meant to treat anxiety. She’d read online that people had survived overdoses on this medication, which was good, because she didn’t want to die, not exactly. Some people said that death was still possible, and that there were many individual factors—age, weight, height, any pre-existing conditions—that influenced the outcome of whether someone would live or not. Others wrote about being in a coma for a few days after taking a large dose. When they woke up, they felt as if they were hungover. Jeannette thought that sounded fine.

There was a glass of water on her nightstand with bubbles in it from sitting there for too long. She reached for the glass and then began to take them one by one, in between small sips until there were none left. From where she was sitting now on her bed, she could see into the backyard. They’d left the blanket and her book, their shoes and cups out on the lawn. Their grandmother would have been furious about that, them not picking up after themselves. But she wasn’t there, and Jeannette thought that the remnants of the day with her baby sister looked sweet through the window. The sunlight was shining on the blanket. The swings were moving with the wind. Jeannette lay down and started to feel warm. She heard Madeline run back into the living room and then the piano began to play, but it didn’t stop this time. As she drifted into sleep, she heard Madeline mumbling to Bridget and giggling over the sound of the keys. The piano hadn’t been tuned in years and none of them knew how to play. The music, which was not really music at all but a series of banging with Madeline’s fingers, normally gave her a headache, but right before she disappeared, she held her own hand and thought it was beautiful.

◆

Bridget spent the day running around the house with the little one. They played with her dolls in the TV room which led to the porch, and after they were done playing with the dolls, Madeline opened the sliding glass door and took her on a tour of the backyard. She pointed to the swing set where they’d been playing earlier. Then she took Bridget by the hand. They passed beneath an oak tree that created a shaded passage beside a small building. Madeline said the building was the grandmother’s studio. Several large stones jutted out of the ground behind it. Bridget asked what those were.

“Oh,” Madeline said. “That’s our graveyard. For the cats. There’s a lot of strays around here and they die sometimes. Jeannie came home one day and found one dead in the driveway. There was blood everywhere. Like it had been turned inside out. Grandma made her get the shovel and bury it here even though she wasn’t feeling well.”

Bridget cocked her head, her lips set slightly apart. She said, “Well, that’s not very nice. Does your grandma treat Jeannie like that often?”

Madeline bit the inside of her cheek and stared at the stone that Jeannette had shoved into the ground. She remembered watching through the window in the mudroom, Jeannette crouching down and then staying there, looking at the grave until the sun set.

Madeline said, “Can I tell you a secret? You have to promise not to tell.”

Bridget knelt and laid a hand across her chest, as if she were swearing on her heart. “I won’t say a thing. I promise.”

Then Madeline cupped a hand against Bridget’s ear. “We’ve had lots of babysitters, but they always leave. I think it’s because our grandma is so mean to my sister.”

Bridget could feel the child’s hot breath against her ear as she spoke, and when the child pulled away, suddenly everything felt cold. Madeline reached down and started picking at a flower in the dirt, as if she hadn’t said anything important at all. Bridget watched her and then looked up at the house, to the second floor. She imagined that she might see the teenager there, staring back at her in the window, but there was no sign of her. She shook her head and almost wanted to laugh at the way she felt scared. If this job didn’t work out, then she’d go back to being a waitress, like she’d been doing when she lived in Los Angeles, before she’d split across the country to avoid the rehabilitation center that her family was forcing her to commit to. She had her own mess to look after and couldn’t involve herself in another. But when she looked back at the child, watching her pick the petals off the stem, she still felt curious.

“Hey,” Bridget said. “Is your sister okay with taking those pills?”

Madeline craned her neck to look at her. “The doctor started those last month,” she said. “They’re new and Jeannie hates them. But Grandma says they make her happy. Sometimes they do. But not all the time.”

“What happens when they don’t work?”

Madeline frowned. “Let’s keep going. The sun is leaving.” She stood and walked forward, pointing at a replica of a Greek statue displayed on the other side of the yard, surrounded by more flowers. She was rambling on about the statue and said it was called Athena and that’s why she had a shield in her hand. Bridget stopped listening. She didn’t bring any alcohol with her this weekend, except for a couple of shooters, which she’d finished before she arrived. But there were several bottles of merlot in the fridge, and she planned to steal some.

They stopped before the statue and Madeline smiled at it. Then she walked through the garden, trampling over a bed of tulips, and put her arms around it. She said, “I think she looks kind of like Jeannie. Right?”

Bridget didn’t think so. The teenager had brown hair down to her shoulders and was meeker, with angular features and worn-out eyes. The statue had a thicker body, and her hair was pinned back beneath a helmet. She had apple cheekbones and though the statue was white, there could have been a pink hue to her cheeks. The teenager looked ill.

“Kind of,” Bridget said. “Yeah.”

Madeline put her fingers on the shield. “She’s strong. Like my sister.”

Bridget said, “You two seem very close. It’s good to get along with your family.”

Madeline looked at the face of the statue and said, “Jeannie is my best friend.”

◆

When Jeannette suddenly woke, she could hardly breathe. Her heart was pounding at irregular beats, and she could feel it stop and then start again. She was sweating. The room was on the brink of darkness, the sun fading behind her. There was no noise. She didn’t know where anybody was or how much time she’d been asleep. The only thought she could manage was one in which she was realizing that she might die. Then she thought she needed to get to the bathroom as soon as possible to make the pills come up. But when she tried to move her legs, they didn’t respond. She kept trying, urging them off the bed, but again, no movement. She started to cry. She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. With her hands, she thrusted herself off the bed and onto the floor. Then she began to army crawl towards the door, praying that her sister wouldn’t be somewhere on the other side. Her head felt heavy, as if it had been hit with a baseball bat, and she kept wanting to put it down, but she continued forward.

Once she was in front of the door, she reached for the knob. Her fingertips rattled the handle and she cursed, but what came out wasn’t fuck. It was some other word that wasn’t a word at all. She managed to get a grip and then turned it. Immediately, she flung the door back and then began to crawl towards the bathroom she shared with her grandmother. The hallway was darker than her room and the wood floor was hurting her elbows but her heart and head hurt more. She pivoted her body into the bathroom and then flung herself onto the toilet bowl. She jabbed her fingers at the back of her throat. But there was no reflex. Again, she cursed and then started to punch harder. Nothing came up.

She didn’t know how long she’d been there, trying to make herself vomit, but there was hardly any light coming through the bathroom window now. She gave up and lay on the cold tiles, staring at the ceiling. She tried to take deep breaths, but each one was shallow. Her head slacked to the side. She saw the painting the grandmother had done of her. The colors had dulled from the moisture, a cobweb hung beneath the border, but she was still there. Her hair was draped around her tiny shoulders, her chin tucked down. She was smiling. Jeannette thought that the girl didn’t look like her. Then she heard the chimes downstairs, the front door opening. She sprang onto her elbows and began quietly crawling back toward her bedroom. When she reached her room, she didn’t have the energy to shut the door again. She left it open. Her heart pounded in her ears as she lifted herself back onto the bed. Then she shut her eyes and laid her hands on her chest. She heard Madeline laugh. She sounded far away. 

◆

Bridget pulled a pizza out of the oven. Madeline was sitting at the table, rubbing a red pencil back and forth in a coloring book. From inside the house, they could hear the toads croaking outside, the grasshoppers chirping, the wind rushing across the farmland and against the sides of the house. Bridget wasn’t used to living in the country. When she’d decided to come out East, she considered moving to New York City, living in an apartment with a few other people. But she couldn’t afford that, not yet at least. Instead, she chose to settle in this town, less than two hours away from the city. If she wanted to visit, she could take the train down. Some of her old friends had moved there. For now, the country would be good for her, being surrounded by nature. But she could hear everything in this town. Sometimes she thought she could hear her own heartbeat.

As she was slicing the pizza, she nearly cut her finger. She stretched her neck, inhaled for a few seconds, and then exhaled. Then she put two slices on a plate and placed it in front of Madeline.

“I should go ask Jeannie if she wants some,” Madeline said.

“Good idea,” Bridget said. “I have to give her the medication, too.”

Madeline hopped down from her chair and went up the nearest staircase, the one that led directly toward the side of the house Jeannette and her grandmother’s room were on. She bolted to the second floor and the lights were still off. She flicked on the switch in the hallway and then she stopped in front of Jeannette’s room. It was dark inside. The door was open. She thought that wasn’t normal. The rule was that if her bedroom door was closed, which was often, Madeline had to knock before entering. But there was no rule about going into the room if the door was open. She decided to knock anyway. When her sister didn’t move, she walked in and stood by the bed.

“Jeannie,” she said. “Do you want some pizza?”

She waited for her sister to open her eyes. But she didn’t. Madeline was about to start shaking her, but then she stopped. She’d found a baby bird lying in the backyard recently. It looked peaceful and soft with its eyes closed. Jeannie had told her to let it sleep. Then she petted it with the tip of her finger and walked away. Looking at Jeannie now was something like that, she thought.

“Never mind,” Madeline said. Then she kissed her on the head and went out of the room, down the stairs and into the kitchen. Bridget was putting a bottle of wine back into the fridge. Madeline pretended not to notice and sat in the chair with her legs pinned underneath her. 

Bridget’s heart pounded. If the child saw, she might tell the grandmother. But Madeline began to eat her pizza and didn’t say anything about it. Bridget reassured herself that she hadn’t seen and relaxed her shoulders. She sat down at the table, where the grandmother was sitting earlier that morning. “Is your sister not coming?” she asked.

“She’s asleep,” Madeline said, sauce tucked into the corner of her mouth.

“But what about her medication? Your grandma said she has to take it.”

Madeline looked up from her pizza. “I won’t tell.”

Bridget shrugged and thought it would be fine. She wouldn’t force feed medication to someone who didn’t want to take it. She got up, grabbed herself a plate, and took three slices for herself. There were two left if the teenager came down and wanted some later. She’d cover them in Saran Wrap and put them in the fridge. There were things she could do and that was one of them.

◆

When they’d finished eating, they went upstairs, to the other side of the house where Madeline’s room was. Bridget helped the girl pick out which pajamas she would wear to bed. She held them up in front of her, as if she were preparing for a night out, and told her to choose between her duckie ones, Mickey Mouse or the pair with hearts on them. Bridget suggested the duckies, but Madeline said she liked the hearts better. Then Bridget waited on the edge of the bed while the girl went to brush her teeth. She had her own bathroom, which Bridget thought was unusual.

She heard the sink turn on in the bathroom while she looked around at the bedroom. The closet doors were a dark wood with decorative handles. Then there was the vanity, with a velvet chair in front of it and on the glass top, miniature bronze statues of mermaids. Bridget understood that the grandmother was an artist, but the house was particularly odd. It was more like a museum than a home. The furniture in the living room was plush and darkly shaded, and she’d had the thought that maybe they weren’t meant to be sat on. There were paintings everywhere, up and down the staircases and in the bathrooms. She’d noticed that there were some in her bedroom downstairs, but she hadn’t looked at them closely yet. She heard the faucet turn off and then a few minutes later, Madeline came walking into the room wearing the heart pajamas, her day clothes bundled in her arms. She dropped them into the hamper in the corner of the room and then hopped into her bed.

“Can you read to me?” she asked, getting underneath the sheets.

Bridget was thinking about the wine in the fridge. “Of course. Which one do—”

 “Sylvie Sue Goes to The Moon,” Madeline said. “It’s in the stack under my bed.”

Bridget reached down and lifted the quilted blanket to find a stack of thin books. She pulled them out and scanned the titles. She found the one that Madeline wanted and then grabbed the chair in front of the vanity and moved it beside the bed. “Does Grandma read this one to you?”

“Grandma doesn’t read to me, really,” Madeline said. “But Jeannie does. She says she’s going to send me to the moon all the time. Like Sylvie Sue.” She sank deeper into the bed, pulling the blanket up to her chin.

“Can I ask you a question?” Bridget said, opening the book. “But you have to promise not to tell.”

Madeline grinned. “Oh yeah,” she said. “I never tell.”

“Does your grandma—” Bridget began. She realized she didn’t have a plan if the child said yes. “Hurt you?”

Madeline set her eyes on Bridget’s hands. She saw no rings. Jeannie said rings really hurt.

Madeline said, “My grandma is a lot like our mom.”

“Right,” Bridget said. “And when you say she’s a lot like your mom, what do you mean?”

“Grandma locked Jeannie outside in the cold a few months ago and wouldn’t let me open the door. When she fell asleep, I let Jeannie in. She was blue. Grandma hit her the next day because she was inside. But Grandma didn’t hit me. My mom was like that, too.”

Bridget wanted to ask another question, but she didn’t know how to phrase it. She flipped through the first couple pages of the book, until she was at the start of the story, but then she decided to try anyway. “How come your mom and grandma are both mean to Jeannie?”

Madeline looked at her as if the answer should have been obvious. Then she said, “Because I’m the little one. But I’ll be big one day.”

Bridget frowned and wondered where she’d learned that. She thought of Madeline’s bow. Jeannette’s salute. She went back to the book. There was an illustration of a girl with a fishbowl over her head, smiling while a woman pressed a finger against the glass. The fear in the woman’s eyes reminded Bridget of last year. She was sitting in a police station at three in the morning after she’d been pulled over for drunk driving. None of her friends were answering their phones. She decided to call her mother. When she arrived, she didn’t yell at Bridget, only cried. She asked her, like she had many times before, what it was going to take for Bridget to see that she was throwing her life away. Bridget didn’t respond. Once they had pulled into the driveway, her mother got out of the car, came around the other side, and hugged her. She didn’t let go for a while. Bridget told her mother that things would get better soon but she was already thinking of the coke bag hidden in her underwear drawer. Her mother said she’d do anything to help. If Bridget called her now, she’d still pick up the phone, take a flight across the country and bring her back home. All she had to do was say that she was ready.

“You’re both going to have big, beautiful lives one day, you know,” Bridget said.

Madeline nodded. “I know,” she said. “And you will, too.” Then she made a gesture that mimed her taking a drink from a bottle.

Bridget stared at the child. Her leg began to shake. “I was only taking a sip,” she said.

Madeline leaned over and laid a hand on Bridget’s leg. The shaking stopped. Her face was close enough to Bridget’s that she could smell the mint of her toothpaste. Madeline said, “My mom and grandma drink a lot and they’re mean but you’re really nice. So be careful. You don’t want to be like my mom and grandma.”

“I won’t,” Bridget said. “Can you just do me a favor and not tell your—”

Madeline leaned forward and put her arms around Bridget. She held tight. Bridget laid the book in her lap and let her hands hover in the air, then she rested them on the child’s back. She closed her eyes and thought that she hadn’t been hugged in a while. Madeline sat back in bed and softly smiled at her, “I’ve heard Jeannie sneak out a bunch of times. My grandma thinks she goes to parties, but she leaves at night to be by herself. She says it’s peaceful out there, so she does it a lot instead of going to bed. Grandma catches her sometimes but most of the time she doesn’t. I don’t tell. Never. Okay?”

Bridget nodded, as if she were being taught an important lesson. She thumbed the corner of the book in her hands. She thought it was a bit sharp for a child’s book, but the dull pain felt good. “Thank you, Madeline,” she said. “You’re a very bright girl. You know that?”

Madeline made herself comfortable in the bed again, tugging the sheets back over her. When her head was resting on the pillows, she yawned. She said, “We should read the book now.”

◆

Madeline had fallen asleep before she’d finished the story. Bridget was surprised, how tender it had felt for her to read aloud as the child drifted off. She kept reading anyway. She wanted to know how it ended. Sylvie Sue goes to the moon and though she can’t get back down, she makes friends with the other moon kids and soon enough, her family comes too, and in the end, they’re all together again. Bridget thought it was interesting how children’s books made such innocent stories out of the worst moments in life. She petted the top of Madeline’s head and then as she turned the light off, she thought that this one was a good way to teach a child about death.

Before heading to her room, Bridget walked down the long hallway to check on Jeannette. She stared into the dark. There was a pile of hair on the pillow, a lump underneath the covers that she knew was Jeannette’s body. Bridget was glad that the girl was still there. Then she quickly walked down the stairs and into the kitchen. She grabbed a bottle of merlot from the fridge and began to chug. She was about to head to her room when she looked at the counter and saw the locked box. She didn’t know what Jeannette was taking, but suddenly, she felt curious. She grabbed her phone and opened her texts with the grandmother. The code was in there. She put her phone down and turned the dials. She was expecting an orange bottle with the name of the prescription, but instead, there was a smaller box with the days of the week labeled on each plastic tab. She opened the Friday tab, took the pill that Jeannette should have taken and washed it down with a swig of wine. She was about to relock the box but then she took Saturday, too. She twisted the dials again. Then she went to her room.

As she opened the door, she looked at the painting across from the bed. It was a portrait of a girl with blonde hair roped into two braids. She was thin and her nose, even thinner. She was sitting on the front steps of what appeared to be this exact house. Bridget thought the girl looked a lot like Madeline. Or maybe even a portrait of herself, when Bridget was a child—but that wasn’t possible. She’d only just met this family. She walked over to the painting as she drank from the bottle. Then she leaned forward to see the scribble in the bottom right corner and nearly fell over. After a minute of wobbling, she was able to see that it was the grandmother’s signature and the date: 1982. This wasn’t her as a child, or Madeline even, but might have been Madeline’s mother as a child. She was thinking about her own mother as a girl, and how sad it was to have once been small to then grow up only to raise a daughter that runs away from home. She wished she could go back. She lay down on the floor and felt as if she were spinning. The pills were strong as hell.

◆

Madeline jolted awake. The room was bright and quiet, the sounds of birds chirping, but she’d sworn something had been right there, beside her bed, about to grab her. Then she realized it had only been a nightmare. She threw her covers off and slid down the side of the bed. She went out into the hall and smelled vanilla. She walked down the stairs, ran her hand across the piano as she passed into the living room and then turned into the kitchen. Bridget was standing in front of the stove, flipping bread in a pan. Madeline thought it was funny to see her babysitter still wearing her pajamas, too. Her hair was thrown into a ponytail. The skin beneath her eyes was sagging and purple. The rest of her face looked pale. She was smiling at Madeline.

“Your grandmother said you guys like French toast,” she said.

“Oh, yeah,” Madeline said. “That’s our favorite thing ever. We haven’t had any in a while.”

“Coming right up then,” Bridget said. She pressed the bread down into the sizzling butter. 

She’d woken at five in the morning on the ground. Instead of crawling into bed, knowing that she’d fall asleep and wake up late, she went to the kitchen and sat at the table, listening to the birds and watching the early bikers pass. She’d decided that, after this weekend, she would call her mom and say that she was coming home. There were two children placed under her supervision. Not only had she stolen the wine, but she’d taken the child’s pills.

Madeline was right. She could still have a big, beautiful life.

The girl sprung toward her and hugged her hip. Although Bridget hardly had the energy, she put the spatula down and picked her up. She spun her around in the kitchen as she giggled. Then they looked across the field and watched a flock of birds take flight from a tree. Madeline pointed at the sun, how orange and strong it was over the wheat and dirt. She said, “It’s so sweet.”

Bridget smiled. Then she put Madeline on the floor and said, “Have you seen your sister?”

“No,” Madeline said, widening her eyes. “She’s going to love this.”

Madeline ran off again calling her sister’s name—Jeannie, Jeannie—as she bounded up the stairs and onto the second floor, straight into her sister’s room, where she began to bounce on the mattress, laughing. Then she plopped down to her knees and started to shake her. “Jeannie,” she said. “There’s French toast. Do you want some?” She waited for a response, but Jeannette didn’t move. She noticed that her skin was kind of gray, her lips slightly blue. There was a terrible smell. Madeline nudged her shoulder. She wasn’t laughing anymore. She frowned and then thought that, maybe, her sister was just playing a prank. “Okay, Jeannie,” she said. “You got me. Now wake up. We’re having your favorite.” Then she poked her face. Madeline’s bottom lip trembled. She looked out the window and noticed that the blanket was still out there from yesterday. She could see Jeannie’s book, their shoes, the lemonade cups. The swings were motionless, but she pictured them there, her sister still pushing her as she pumped her legs. When Madeline looked back at Jeannie, she began to scream. She screamed all through the house, into the kitchen, and through the rest of the day, and her life.