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I reach for the door handle and…

“Don’t do it, Grace,” Bebe calls out. “Don’t go in. It’s locked, I bet. We’ll have to break a window. And that will open it all up again. Just leave it alone.”

I turn back to her. She’s half in and half out of the car. One foot on the ground. The wind is blowing her hair sideways and a chill runs up my spine.

I rub my arms and hug myself to stave off the cold. “I need a coat,” I call back.

“There’s no coats in there, Grace. We had it cleaned out, remember? There’s nothing in there.”

I look back at the door, at my hand still reaching for the handle. “What if… I open that door and they’re still in there?”

“They’re not in there, Grace.” She’s right up beside me now. “They’re not in there.”

“I know that. But can’t a girl hold onto a little hope?”

“That’s not hope, Kinsella. That’s denial.” I look over at her and she shrugs. “Truth.” And then she hops down off the stoop and picks up a rock and climbs back up. “But if you really want to go inside, I’ll help you. I don’t think it’s a good idea, but I’ll—”

Her words are cut off as a car comes slowly down the gravel driveway. A maroon sedan covered in a layer of dust and dirt.

“Who’s that?” I ask. But I already know. “Aunt Rachel.”

The car parks next to Bebe’s and idles there. I stare into the eyes of a living blood relative for the first time in ten years and my heart goes wild with fear. Her hair is hidden by a wool hat, but even through the window I can see a few straggly strands of gray peeking out. She was pretty when I was a kid. At least, that’s how I remember her. She and my mom used to look alike, but the woman I see through the glass does not look like the mother I have in my memories.

Maybe it’s the frown?

I only let myself remember my mother as happy. Because my last memory of her was the horror that took place the night she was killed.

Aunt Rachel leaves the engine running and then opens the door of the car and places a hesitant foot outside. Just like Bebe did a few moments earlier. It’s like this place makes everyone pause before getting out. “What’re you doing here?” she yells over the wind.

I look at Bebe and she’s squinting her eyes at my aunt, but she stays silent.

“Visiting,” I call back from the stoop.

“You have no right to come back here and disrupt the quiet. No right.”

My eyebrows go up. “I own this farm.”

“I own this farm. This is my farm. I grew up on this farm. Your mama got it in the will and that’s how you got it. But this farm is mine.”

“Wow,” Bebe says. “She wants to talk about property rights.”

“No one wants you here, Daisy.”

“Grace,” Bebe says with a snarl. “Her name is Grace.”

“I don’t care what her name is. Nobody wants her here.”

Bebe hurls the rock at Aunt Rachel and it hits the hood of her car with a thunk. “Fuck off, you bitch.”

Aunt Rachel is screaming at her, but Bebe provoked is a force of nature. She storms down the front stoop, yelling right back. They get up in each other’s faces and start pushing. Jesus Christ, we’re going to jail today.

“Bebe!” I run after her. “Bebe, please.” I grab hold of her coat and pull her back. “Stop, please.”

“No, Grace.” She turns her anger towards me now. “No. This is over. This life is over. It’s been over for a decade. And this bitch thinks she can come out here to your farm”—she seethes that part in the direction of my aunt—“and talk shit to you? No.”

He eyes are wild with anger as she waits for me to say something, but as usual, I stay silent.

“That’s right,” Aunt Rachel says. “She knows her place. She know she’s guilty—”

“Guilty of what, you stupid whore?”

“Bebe, please!”

“Guilty of ruining this family. Guilty of ruining this farm. Guilty of ruining this town. We are forever known as the place where Daisy Bryndle’s family was murdered so some sick freak could have his way with her—”

“Oh, you cunt! You did not—” Bebe lunges at my aunt and hits her full on in the chest, sending her reeling backwards until they are both on the ground.

“Jesus, Bebe! Stop!” I pull on her coat until she gets up off the ground.

My aunt stands, brushing off the dirt. And then she turns back to me, breathing heavy from the altercation. “You did this, Daisy. You led that boy on somehow—”

I slap her across the face. Hard. Harder than I ever did Vaughn.

“Shut up,” I say in the wake of her stunned silence. “Just shut the fuck up.”

Her hand goes to the red mark on her cheek and she shakes her head. “Get out of here. Now. Or I will press charges for assault. And don’t think for a moment”—she looks over at Bebe—“that you will get out of this by declaring me a trespasser. Everyone knows this is my land.”

Bebe opens her mouth to say something but I put my hand on her arm to make her stop. “Never mind, Bebe. You were right. There’s nothing here for me. Let’s just go.”

Aunt Rachel stares us down as we climb back into Bebe’s idling Porsche and pull the doors closed with a dull thump.