40.

Back to 1988. We last left our motley crew in Bronson Park during a heavily-trafficked dinner hour. Eleven-year-old Audrey was enduring a spirited beating from Grandma Pencil while a gaggle of outraged Kalamazooans looked on. A ponytailed white man with a paunch like a sack of kitty litter earned himself a few hundred Good Samaritan points and a round of ravenous applause by stepping in to stop the abuse.

Then it was up to the Mapes family to regroup and collect what dignity they still possessed. Gradually the crowd dispersed, shaming Grandma with sidelong glares. The picnic was over. Misty repacked the basket, and the family headed toward the walking mall. Audrey and Toby trailed fifty feet behind, Audrey crutching herself and Toby leaning down every thirty seconds to whisper into her ear. They laughed conspiratorially. When the rest of the family stopped for a traffic light, Audrey and Toby hung back until the signal said WALK.

Grandma Pencil hadn’t spoken a word since she’d been pulled off of Audrey by a stranger. Her nostrils flared. One side of her hair looked like a snowdrift, while the other would’ve made a nice home for a family of robins. The sour plea sure in her eyes suggested she was running through a detailed scenario of torturing Audrey, or the ponytailed man, or both.

Murray scuffled along the sidewalk in his sandals, pointing at every building, giving a running commentary: “The library? Yep. Looks like a lot of books in there. Pastries and baked goods? Makes more sense than baked bads, I guess. Wonder how much they charge for a muffin. Is it me, or does this town have a ton of crazy people? One, two, three . . . maybe not that guy. Hi, how you doing? No, he’s drunk. Hey, look. That’s where they print the newspaper.” And so on.

Why, Misty? Why wouldn’t you talk to your mom? Why were you incapable of confronting her? Why couldn’t you defend your youngest daughter?

Instead, Misty grabbed Murray’s hand. She rested her head on his shoulder. McKenna sled-dogged luggage behind them. The one thing that made sense to McKenna was her parents’ love for one another. They were best friends. They respected each other. They rarely had a disagreement, and when they did, they worked it out.

In other words, parents who modeled a healthy relationship and provided a modest but stable income—all the basic necessities. So why did day-to-day Mapeshood feel so frayed, so tenuous? Sure, Murray’s hobby stole him away for long periods. And sure, he never tried to include them in his inventions. And sure, Misty was prone to bouts of emotional paralysis and sullen daydreaming. But who isn’t?

As the Mapeses meandered up South Street, McKenna knew, quite suddenly, the reason for the family’s unhappiness.

And as soon as she envisioned it in her mind, there it was in the flesh, ambling up beside her on the sidewalk. The odd person out. Grandma Pencil.

It seemed so obvious now. Grandma hadn’t been bad when they were kids, but since she’d gotten close with the nuns, she had changed. Along with her strengthened faith had come a sense of entitlement. Grandma simplyc ouldn’t let Audrey be—she was determined to make the poor girl suffer for what she perceived as the “sin” of her diet. Never mind that Audrey had no choice. Never mind that it did no harm to Grandma if Audrey lunched on a bag of charcoal.

These things didn’t matter because Grandma knew the “rules.” The body was a temple, and to befoul this temple was to spit in God’s face.

Which made sense, really. Deep down, McKenna agreed that there was something unseemly, something so unnatural as to approach deviance, in Audrey’s appetite. Sometimes at night, when McKenna was sinking into sleep, she swore she could feel the soft weight of baby Audrey upon her breast, could sense that abyssal mouth yawning toward her.

McKenna had stood there, motionless, while Grandma’s hand fell, again and again, upon Audrey’s spine. She hadn’t rushed in to knock Grandma away. She hadn’t screamed at Grandma to leave her sister alone.

In that moment, mixed with embarrassment and anger there had been giddiness and satisfaction.

In that moment, she’d felt joy rushing to the surface like a black-eyed Great White.

A voice whispered amid the spray of water and blood, “Give it to her. Give it to her. Take that. Take that.”