“Was he that bad?”

Claire sighed and grabbed a strawberry off Eleanor’s plate. Eleanor pretended to stab her hand with the fork.

“You want to know how bad he was?” Claire asked.

“Probably not, but tell me anyway.”

“Frater won’t tell me much, so I got all this from Mom.”

“Wait, stop right there. Explain the Frater thing to me.”

“It’s Latin for brother. Soror is Latin for sister. That’s what he and I call each other—Frater and Soror. He says he hates the name Marcus.”

“That was your dad’s name?”

“Right. And this is why he hates the name, and this is why I’m not sad my father’s dead.”

Claire took a deep breath, kicked off her black ballet flats and curled up against the back of the couch.

“My father is … was a very bad person. My mom says he abused Elizabeth when she was a little girl.”

“He hit her?”

“Worse.”

Eleanor’s heart stopped beating for a few seconds.

“Oh, f**k.”

“Elizabeth’s mom and my father got divorced over that. They got married in the sixties, divorced in the seventies. Everyone kept stuff like that a secret. Then he met my mom and married her. They had me. Elizabeth found out from her mom that our father had gotten remarried and had me. She didn’t know what to do so she wrote a letter to Frater.”

“What did he do?” Eleanor was careful to not call Søren “Søren.” Apparently Claire didn’t know his real name. Interesting that Søren thought her more worthy of knowing his real name than his own baby sister.

“This is what Mom told me. She said it was late November. I was three years old. My father was gone on one of his business trips. Mom said the doorbell rang one afternoon and she answered it. And standing on the front porch was, and these are her words, ‘a blond angel.’”

“A blond angel?”

“That’s what she said. He introduced himself as the son of her husband, which was a huge shock since she didn’t even know my father had a son. He told her that she didn’t have to let him in the house. He only wanted five minutes of her time.”

“What happened?”

“Ten minutes later, Mom was packing our stuff, calling her parents and getting us out of the house—this house. My ‘blond angel’ brother told my mom she’d married a child-raping monster and if she loved her daughter she would never let her spend a single second in their father’s company ever again. He had a friend with him, my mom said.”

“A friend? Who?”

“Some French guy about his age. They both helped her carry the stuff to Mom’s car. She said she offered to let him hold his baby sister. Me, that is. He said he didn’t know anything about children and was worried he’d hurt me. Apparently his friend held me instead while she packed up the car. He said he liked kids. Now I make Frater hug me all the time to make up for that day he wouldn’t do it.”

“That is crazy.” So a teenage Kingsley had gone with Søren to his father’s house. She couldn’t imagine Kingsley holding a kid. “So your brother left school to warn your mom about who she’d married?”

“He did. And guess what, Elle?”

“What?”

“Because of him coming to my mother that day, I lost my virginity at age sixteen to my boyfriend. Not at age eight to my father like Elizabeth did. So that’s why I’m totally in love with my brother. Not that way, though.” Claire grinned, a slight blush suffusing her cheeks.

“Yeah, not that way. I get it.” Eleanor stared across the room and into the empty fireplace. “It doesn’t surprise me, you know? I mean, it’s horrible and it makes me sick to think about your dad and what he did to your sister. I have this friend at school—Jordan. Her mom won’t let us hang out much anymore because of some trouble I got into once. But last year I could tell something was really wrong with her. I made her tell me. A teacher had felt her up.”

“What a sick f**ker.”

“I know,” Eleanor said. “I told your brother about it. He put the fear of God into that ass**le teacher. That guy packed up his shit and left town. Your brother has this really strong protective streak toward girls.”

“Elizabeth is the reason,” Claire said. “He’s so protective I didn’t even want to tell him about Ike.”

“He’s protective of me, too,” Eleanor said. “Except with me, he’s protecting me from him, and I wish he’d stop.”

“You are in love with him.” Claire studied her with Søren’s steel-colored eyes. They must have inherited that steely stare from their father.

“Yeah,” she admitted, not looking Claire in the eyes.

“Does he know?”

“He does. Does that freak you out?”

“I don’t want him getting in trouble, that’s for sure. But I don’t want him to be a priest, either. When he was in seminary, I’d cut out pictures of sexy women in magazines and send them to him in my letters. I wrote on the pictures ‘see what you’re missing?’”

“And you say I’m evil?”

“I know. He thought it was hilarious. He said mine were the most popular letters at his seminary. It was a joke at first. But then a few years ago when that thing happened in El Salvador, I called him and begged him to quit school and come home.”