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When my family gets home from Faith’s school event, I move down the stairs as if I’m trudging through mud. My father’s going to know I’m telling him a half-truth. He’s going to be mad that Ford is in my class. He’s going to demand I drop journalism, and because of the way it will impact my schedule, that will probably lead me to dropping art.

Suddenly I’m dumbfounded by the number of half-truths I’ve told since we arrived, the lies of omission. About sharing two classes with Ford, about Mrs. Onorato’s book list, and reading Fahrenheit 451 after my father told me not to, and sneaking Outlander into this house each and every day. The thing that happened with Ford.

Is this how it started for Mary Joyce? A few lies of omission, a few rules she saw no harm in breaking?

I’ve only been here for a month, but I’ve already done so many things wrong.

My father is deep in conversation with my mother when I get downstairs, something about the compost bucket. Dr. Jefferies must not have told him yet, but that doesn’t mean he won’t tell him Monday. I’ll get in less trouble by admitting it now than I will by allowing my father to find out on his own down the road.

“We’ll do a cake tomorrow to celebrate your birthday,” my mother promises, and then she and my father resume their conversation, which soon turns to Faith, their favorite, as always. Faith, who is currently in front of the TV, watching shows I was never allowed to watch at her age.

My mouth opens, then closes.

Perhaps I’m being petty and childish, but...is this relationship between us not supposed to be reciprocal? I honor them, but in exchange, they act as if I matter too? They express concern when my bike is destroyed, or some sympathy about all the things I’ve had to miss by coming here?

I guess if they are going to barely acknowledge my birthday—I’m fairly certain that cake my mom promised is never coming, not unless Faith wants to make a cake tomorrow—then maybe I don’t need to fully acknowledge each and every mistake either.

I return to my room. As a birthday gift to myself, I close the door and reread the wedding night scene from Outlander.

I’m still picturing Ford’s face in place of Jamie’s, despite what happened today. Or maybe because of it—there’s this deep pluck in the bottom of my abdomen at the thought of what Ford did. In my memory now, there’s a heat that made the air seem to grow heavy and still around us.

What he did was wrong. But I let my hand brush over my breast, the way his did. I hold the weight in my hand and pinch the nipple.

I do it again. Harder than he did.

I picture that glint in his eyes, the way something in them grew hazy, just for a moment, and there’s that sound he made, but it’s against my ear, his breath on the lobe, skating down my neck before his mouth latches onto my skin.

He pinches my nipple again, one and then the other, and again. Heat blossoms as my whole body tightens.

And lying in my bed, with the wrong book in my hands and the wrong thoughts in my head, my body seems to detonate, and I gasp his name as it happens.

The shame is overwhelming. I know what happened last night, what I did. It should have happened with my husband. Ford has stolen one thing from him and now I’ve stolen a second. It will never occur again. That’s all I can do—recommit myself to our beliefs and stop doing so many things I’ve begun doing these past few weeks.

But none of these things would have happened if my parents just hadn’t brought us here.

On Saturday, while my father sits behind his closed office door, my mother does mountains of laundry and irons every piece, even the sheets. I take Faith to the park, clean the bathrooms, scrub the baseboards, and help with dinner. It’s always been a mystery to me when people say they’re looking forward to the weekend. Weekends in my home are drudgery from start to finish.

“We’ll celebrate your birthday tomorrow,” my mother says as I pull pasta off the drying rack.

I sigh. “No, we won’t. Not unless Faith brings it up.”

My mother’s head jerks toward mine. “Please tell me you’re not resentful of the extra attention I pay your eight-year-old sister. You’re grown now, and she’s not.”

I should apologize, but I sort of think they owe me an apology—for bringing me here, for not fixing my bike, for not allowing me to fit in, for exposing me to all these experiences I’m not supposed to have without giving me the armor I need to handle them. “When she’s eighteen, you won’t be too tired to celebrate her birthday, though.”

Her laugh is short and exasperated. She’s so dumbfounded by my persistence in this that she’s stopped peeling the tomatoes entirely. “Is this about the cake? You don’t even like cake that much.”

I know I’m being unfair, holding her solely responsible for everything. I know I’m being ungrateful. But I refuse to let her act as if the issue is whether or not I like cake. Maybe this is childlike of me, but she spent three hours crafting a stuffed animal tea party last weekend for Faith. She finds the time when she wants to. I’d have found the time for her.

“The point isn’t the cake, Mom. It’s about being celebrated and made to feel special.”

“Remember what Matthew says?” she asks, raising a scolding brow. “Don’t ask to be celebrated but wait for your higher reward in heaven.”

It’s very convenient, the way my church has a quote to shut down every complaint. “But you’re still going to celebrate Faith, aren’t you?”

“I’m absolutely astonished by how selfish you’re being!” she cries. “Faith has lost more than you have and yet you begrudge the little I do to make up for it.”

“What has she lost?” I demand.