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Even with my family, as amazing as they are, sometimes I feel as if I could just slip away, and they’d grieve, but my loss would have no real impact on their lives. That if I stopped visiting or calling, I’d just fade until one day, Mom would wake up in a cold sweat, remembering she had a third child.

Or maybe she wouldn’t.

The vision slams back, my mother’s face, watching me with no recognition, and then with trepidation, this stranger who showed up on their lawn, acting as if she belonged there. And then my father, turning the friendliness he shows to strangers on me … and then a rage I’ve never seen.

A true nightmare come to life.

A nightmare for them, too? Or maybe a life that’s just slightly better, no damaged daughter to care for, just memories of a happy and confident child.

What had the bartender said? The past fixed? The wrong righted?

The wrong righted … for them?

I squeeze my eyes shut. No, I’m being melodramatic. Feeling sorry for myself. That preserved bedroom, that rage on my father’s face—I can’t see that and say they’d have been better off if I’d died in that shooting.

Henry’s watching me uncertainly, as if he wants to honor my wishes and back off but he’s worried that my mood swing might be another sign something is wrong.

I need to tell him what I saw. So what if he presumes it’s a hallucination? At least I will have gotten the words out so …

So if this all goes wrong, I’ll have kept nothing to myself.

If it all goes wrong? I sneak a look at the bartender.

No, when it all goes wrong.

“Can we talk?” I murmur to Henry.

Relief flashes over his face. “Sure.” He looks up and glances around. “Ellie needs a minute. Can she sit somewhere else? A back room maybe?”

“She can step outside,” the bartender says, his voice light, clearly amusing himself, and Henry’s face hardens.

“I know you’re trying to be funny,” Henry says. “But could you please stop? No one needs that.”

The bartender lifts one shoulder, his gaze on the glass he’s polishing. “I could remind you that it’s my bar. One word from me, and you all go outside.”

“Like to see you try,” the newcomer says, squaring his shoulders.

“Enough, please,” Noemi says. “Everyone’s on edge and trying to figure this out, and the jokes aren’t landing. Threats won’t either.”

“There’s a back room.” The bartender hooks a finger. “Though, if you ask me, jokes are exactly what people need right now. The tension’s getting a little thick.”

Henry ushers me through a door beside the bar. It’s the same one the bartender wheeled his bike through. Henry finds a switch, and a single bulb turns on.

I walk in and look around.

The storage room is empty. There are shelves and hooks, but otherwise nothing.

“Where’s the storage?” I murmur to myself.

“Hmm?”

I shake my head. Henry obviously doesn’t see anything amiss. But he’s also not looking. He’s focused on me.

“Something happened,” I say as I move closer. “And before I start, I know you’re going to say I have a concussion or it’s shock, and that’s fine. But you wanted to know what was wrong, and so I’m going to tell you.”

“Okay.”

I move farther from the wall adjoining the bar. “You said I fainted. Is that what you saw? I collapsed?”