PROLOGUE
OLIANTE, NEW YORK: MARCH 2023
WE’RE EATING DINNERwhen our front door explodes.
Large, imposing men flood into our kitchen. I’m frozen, spoon halfway to my mouth, my terrified eyes locked on the guns in their hands. Their barrels shift—rapid, frantic—from my dad to me, then back again. They’re shouting, but their words are smothered under the weight of those guns. I watch as one of their thumbs, pulled tight with nerves, spasms on the trigger.
Oh god, they’re going to kill us.
My eardrums pop; suddenly, I can hear them, loud and clear: “Police! Get down on the floor! Hands behind your heads!”
I slide onto the linoleum floor. My bowl’s toppled off the table, and my knees settle in warm cheese. Scattered bits of macaroni squish under their boot treads. My heart pounding in my chest, I watch as one of the officers digs his knee into the small of my dad’s back, yanking his arms behind him and rucking up his shirtsleeves.
“Nicola.”
My gaze shifts to my dad’s. To his watery blue eyes.
“It’s going to be fine.”
The handcuffs click around his wrists.
“Everything’s going to be fine.”
The officer hauls him upright and drags him out the door. The others follow until our kitchen is silent and empty. My breaths beat against the floor, my limbs trembling. Slowly, I pull myself to my feet and stagger to the gaping hole where our door used to be.
The brisk air hits my face, followed by the glare of lights. I lift my hand to shield my eyes. The engines of the police cars sputter; their radios crackle. My lips part, and words come tumbling out:
“He’s a good man.”
No one’s listening. I take a step forward and raise my voice.
“He’s a good man.”
The officers shove my dad into the back seat. He lifts his hands and gently touches the window, mouths something to me through the glass.I love you? The engines rumble, and the cars careen down the road.
I start jogging, following the headlights until they’re nothing but pinpricks in the distance.
Until they disappear into the night.
1NICOLA
OLIANTE, NEW YORK: JUNE 2023
THREE MONTHS LATER
MURDERER.
It’s scribbled across one of my paintings in thick, black marker. Permanent marker. I stand in front of my classroom bulletin board, staring at that word, reading it over and over until it fissures into nothing more than a series of lines and curves.
The painting is of a rickety dock extending into Ellicott Creek. Algae clumps around the posts, the tall grasses on the banks sticking out like paintbrush bristles. My dad used to take me fishing there when I was little. He’d pull his bucket hat down over my forehead until I could barely see out from under the fraying brim, and we’d eat peanut-butter-and-potato-chip sandwiches while we waited for a nibble on the line.
MURDERER.
I rip the painting off the bulletin board and shred it into tiny pieces—until there’s no more dock and no more creek, and no more murderers. Then I toss them into the nearest trash can and tuck the remaining pieces of art into my cardboard box.
I scan the classroom, debating what else to take. Every set of brushes, every tube of paint was paid for out of my own pocket. That’s how it always goes in underfunded school districts. I should strip the cabinets; I don’t owe my administration anything. But then I think of the students, of myself at their age—feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere, not even in my own body, which outgrew four pairs of khakis in a single school year—and I remove one set of markers from a drawer. These were expensive, professional-grade. If my life’s going to be nothing but free time for the foreseeable future, I might as well get some drawing done. I’m about to close the drawer when I hear the shuffle of footsteps behind me.
“Ms. Fischer?”
