Page 50 of State of Ruin

“Ohhh,” I say softly, my eyes clamped to the images. “Oh my God.” There are so many photographs of the Voss children—three boys and a girl, all dark-haired, all with huge grins and the golden tans of people who know what it means “to summer.” Some are formal photos with near-identical dress, the kids lined up in height order; more are your everyday family snaps, if your family looked like a Ralph Lauren photoshoot every day, that is, the four of them giving and receiving hugs-slash-headlocks or in full, glorious action, playing tennis or waving from boats or lying like puppies on top of each other.

They look so vibrant and healthy and gorgeous: the all-American dream, shared by so many and actually lived by only the fewest elite.

“Let me see,” I murmur, setting my mug down so I can scan one photo on a sailboat with my left hand because Sinclair is gripping my right like he’ll never let it go. I let my pointer finger drift across the image until… “That one! Is that you?” He’s standing at the end, hair sticking up in all directions, a slack-jawed look of disbelief on his face as one of his brothers attempts to climb up on the edge of the boat. He must have been around thirteen or fourteen. It’s just a single, lovely, privileged moment of many, but it’s been caught on film forever, and I find myself eternally grateful to whoever captured it.

“Bingo,” the fully grown version of the boy says beside me, and I squeeze his hand tighter. So handsome—then and now.

“Twelve-year-old me would have been madly in love with you,” I say with a sigh, and he chuckles, pressing a kiss to the top of my head.

“That is very encouraging.”

There are endless sitting rooms in this house, all with beachy vibes and all feeling more faded and lived-in than Sinclair’s version, as if he commissioned exactly what he wanted whereas these rooms have simply evolved. They all have huge bay windows with lovely, cushioned window seats. In the biggest room, there is a whole line of double doors leading out onto the veranda and down to the lawn. Parties here must be a lot of fun. I imagine a lot of smart, old-money people traipsing out through those doors and down over the perfect lawns.

“Do you do fireworks here on the Fourth?” I ask, sounding wistful even to my own ears.

“Can you bear it if I say we have a great display over the water?”

I pretend to double over in pain. “Not really.”

He laughs. “Cut me some slack. God knows I need some incentive to be persuaded to spend time with my family.”

“I’m pretty sure that incentive is all around us, my friend.”

“Touché.” He hesitates, leading me out of the room and back down the hall. “Are you ever going to trust me enough to tell me why you’re living with your sister?”

I’m quiet for a moment. “It’s not a matter of trusting,” I say finally. “It’s just—I don’t want to burden you with my problems.” It’s more than that, really. I don’t ever want him to think I’m dropping hints about our dire financial straits or that I’m some kind of gold digger with a sob story.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he says. “No one has more secrets than my family. But you could never be a burden. You can share anything with me.”

I decide right here and now that I’ll tell him the nuts and bolts of our situation but none of the financial strain. “My sister had an accident a few months back,” I say in a rush. “She got knocked off her bike by a hit-and-run driver.” I glance up at him to see his face draining of color.

“Jesus,” he says in a strangled voice, coming to a halt in front of a closed door. “That’s horrific. Did they catch the driver?”

I shake my head. He’s staring at me in horror.

“You’re kidding me. Was she okay, though?”

“I mean, she lived, but not really. She shattered her hip and her pelvis. She’s had major reconstructive surgery but the rehab is seriously tough. She has a little girl⁠—”

“Your niece. I remember.”

“Yeah. Fleur. She’s five. So obviously, that made things more complicated. We all agreed together that they’d move back in with my dad, because his place is single-story, and that I’d move back home, too. It made sense. There’s a lot of stuff she needs help with that you don’t want your dad getting involved with, if you catch my drift.”

He’s staring down at me. “Jesus, that’s so rough. So you’re all living together…”

“… in my childhood home. Got it.”

“Where were you living before?” he asks, turning the knob and opening the door so we can enter a spacious, wood-paneled study.

“Hell’s Kitchen. But, honestly, it’s kinda nice to be home, you know? I don’t mind it. We’re in Bayonne, and we’ve lived there all our lives. We have a good support system. Sometimes it’s nice to be out of Manhattan.”

“Tell me about it. So… how is everyone doing? Your sister? Your dad?”

“We’re good.” I give a decisive nod as if I’m trying to convince us both. Barely solvent, but good. “My sister is working from home. I take her to PT. My dad and I juggle the school run for Fleur around work—he has an auto repair shop nearby. Everyone pitches in, and it just about works. I honestly think it’s been good for Dad in a weird way, having the house full of his girls again.” I don’t mention that, for every extra ounce of joy it’s brought him, it’s probably added a pound of stress.

“Yeah.” Sinclair turns me so he can slide a hand beneath my hair and tilt my face up. It feels like he’s studying me hard, reading my face like a polygraph. “How long since your mom passed, again?”

“Three years.” I screw up my face. “So it’s good for him, to keep busy. But that’s why I haven’t been able to sleep over. It’s hard, with Sylvie still so deep in recovery.”