the boys on an airplane. Knox’s mother was planning the memorial for just over a month hence, to allow for the twins to travel; and Knox had informed everyone—her parents, Bruce, Ned—that she would be the one to fill in the gap in the meantime, doing feedings, shopping for groceries, lending an extra pair of hands for the pediatrician’s visits, and whatever the hell else there was to do, then assisting with the flight home.
“You don’t have to do this,” Ned said now. “You don’t owe her this, you know.”
“No?”
“Stay. Stay here with me.”
“I can’t. What is Bruce going to do? I’m her sister.”
Ned said nothing, but watched her patiently, as if waiting for her to recant. She’d sounded melodramatic, and he was too wise to her touchiness on the subject of Charlotte to let her play this role completely straight.
“Yeah,” he drawled, finally. “You are. But that doesn’t mean you have to overturn your life right now. You’re going to mess yourself up, Knox.”
“No, I’m not. What about the boys? They’re my nephews. They need me.”
“If you’re going for their sake, then go. That’s one thing.”
“Why else would I be going?”
Ned took off his glasses, went through the motions of cleaning them, replacing them.
“I don’t know.” He sighed. “You’ve got to ask yourself, honey—is this something you would have done while she was alive? Maybe you just don’t want to let her go.”
“Let her go? She hasn’t been dead a month!”
“I didn’t mean that, exactly. I think I meant let go of the idea that you’re always supposed to fix things. Because you can’t, certainly not now. And once you get that idea in your head with her you always end up in a bad place.”
“It’s not like I’m moving up there. I’ll be back in a few weeks, for goodness’ sake.”
“You’re going to be in her house,” Ned said. “Among her things.”
“I know that.”
“You have nothing to feel guilty about, if that’s what you’re doing.”
Knox said nothing.
“You want me to come with you?” Ned looked so worried that Knox was momentarily tempted, and felt her irritation at him lessen.
“You hate New York,” she said.
Ned smiled, but his eyes were serious, intent on her face.
“What’s not to hate?” he said.
THEIR FAMILY HAD BEEN TOGETHER, all five of them, at Christmas. That was the last time. They sat around the breakfast room table, crowded together on Charlotte’s first night home, Charlotte shoehorned between Knox and their father, her place mat overlapping with theirs at the edges. Their mother sat in a low-seated antique chair that had been pulled up to the table’s side; Robbie, home too for his winter vacation, had fetched her a pillow to sit on at the beginning of dinner after they had laughed at how comparatively little of her torso showed above the table’s surface and torn off little scraps of bread to toss in her direction as if she were an urchin who’d materialized in their midst. “Please, suh,” Knox’s father said, cupping his hands together and holding them out. Knox’s mother compressed her lips, pushed at his shoulder with the heel of her hand, raised her head, and straightened until she sat up taller. She flicked a piece of bread back at Robbie, who ducked. Bruce was to arrive the next day, Christmas Eve; if Bruce had been with them that night, Knox thought, they might have been ranged around the dining room table; it was more generously sized, and anyway Bruce inspired this increased formality in Knox’s family—each of them seemed to galvanize in his presence, in the presence of Bruce and Charlotte together, the same way they did for company. Of course, extra efforts were being made tonight, too. Though they sat around the everyday table, they ate by candlelight. Knox’s father had opened a second bottle of the red wine his wife had set out on the buffet behind his chair.
“It’s not like they make you do anything,” Robbie was saying.
“Oh no,” Knox said. “I’ll bet they just show up in your room at four in the morning and put a hood over your head and tell you that if you don’t pound twelve beers in a row you’re a sorry excuse for a man. But it’s not like they make you do anything.”
Robbie grinned at her. His top teeth were colored pinkish. “I thought you decided not to rush when you were in college.”
“So she’s right!” Knox’s mother covered one side of her face with her hand. “Oh, Rob, not