Margot, that wasn’t love. That was demoralizing, the way Dad treated her.

His problems, made my problems. His version of events, made mine.

My brother and sister-in-law stand over me with their arms wrapped around each other in such a deep and loving gesture, and there’s not a selfie stick in sight. It’s wonderful, but is it real? Would I even know?

The rain makes everything a little blurry, even in my mind.

Is this the true Adam and the true Aimee, or are they characters in “The One Where They Push Margot over the Edge”?

FARAH

Inside the house, Ted is in the kitchen and has inexplicably shifted from nearly passed-out drunk to wired. Joe’s talking his ear off while they wait for another pot of coffee to brew. I think he’s had more than enough.

“Margot needs you,” I say.

Ted sprints ahead as I jog back toward the center of the action. Aimee and Adam embrace in the rain. It would be romantic if it weren’t for the allegation that he’s currently having an affair, in addition to the one Aimee apparently knew about ten years ago. I cannot hold my tongue any longer.

“Aimee, what are you doing? Rini just said Adam is having an affair with Eden. Eden, a woman under this roof with us, someone who is part of our friend group.”

“Well, Rini’s a fraud,” Aimee says.

“And what about Margot? Is she lying too? Because I heard her subtext loud and clear.”

“What?” Adam snaps.

“Oh boy,” I say. “And then there’s that reaction. Doesn’t exactly scream innocent to be angry at your sister for revealing your dirty secret.”

“Margot was asking me tough questions, trying to unearth what I want. She wasn’t tattling on her brother,” Aimee says.

I can feel my patience wearing thin. Aimee will counter every inference I make. She needs new information. Straight from the source.

“Why don’t you go inside and ask Eden? Her reaction might be all you need to confirm or deny. You had a feeling on that first night. You made me go through his stuff with you.”

“You went through my stuff?” Adam asks. His victim meter is off the charts.

“I didn’t make you,” Aimee says to me.

“That’s right, you didn’t. Because I would do anything for you. That’s my bad.”

I can’t take any more of this. This entire group has the primal responses of a trapped animal. Their instinct has no rational thought; it’s all lashing out.

“Don’t listen to her,” Adam says to Aimee. “She wants you to break up with me so she can control you. All she does is order you around like you’re her nurse.”

The underlying connection between me and Aimee’s-mother-the-cold-nurse is meant to be hurtful, to both me and Aimee. It’s true I’m confused about my feelings for Aimee, but I’m pushing her to do the right thing. To confront the truth and then decide how to move forward. I’m not secretly hoping she divorces Adam and falls in love with me, at least not consciously. And not yet. It’s too soon to know. Adam’s warped words send me back toward the house.

“Wait,” Margot calls. I turn to see her cross the lawn to Ted. He opens his arms and pulls her into a warm hug away from the cold rain. It’s a genuine display of love that comforts me, as opposed to the farce of Adam and Aimee.

“Part of the concern here—for me too—is whether Rini is a fraud, a fake astrologer,” Margot says. “Well, in my reading she told me I’m going to have a baby in nine months’ time, which would mean I’m pregnant right now. I have a pregnancy test upstairs.”

“You do? We agreed there’d be no tests this weekend,” Ted says.

“I know. I found it in the bottom of my suitcase this afternoon. I didn’t buy it or pack it, but it’s there. It must be old,” Margot says.

“Lucky,” Ted says with a weak smile.

I jump in with the obvious conclusion. “So if the test is positive, Rini was right and Aimee confronts Eden for her side of the story.”

“And if the test is negative, we run Rini back to her cottage and head home the minute it’s safe. Let’s allow fate to have a say in what happens next,” Margot says.

“Deal,” Aimee says. Adam and Ted agree reluctantly. I nod my consent in time with a bolt of lightning flashing through the sky. On the mark of the rumble of thunder, the five of us begin the slog through the wet grass to the main house.

“Not so fast,” Rini yells. She’s put a hoodie on over the mess Adam splattered on her. “You’re not coming back inside my house until I get what I need from you.”

RINI

This moment is not what I expected. What started as a defense of my sister has become personal. Adam and Aimee have attacked my character, my business, my studies and skill.

“I did have ulterior motives in bringing you all here, but that doesn’t mean I’m a fraud. I’ve been studying astrology since I was fourteen years old, and every reading I shared came directly from your charts. For one of you, and only one of you, I chose my narrative with an agenda.”

“Which one?” Aimee asks.

“Adam. Adam is the only one who I’d known had hurt my sister before you showed up. I had no idea that you had a role in the way it played out, Aimee. I figured that out hours after your reading. You added to her trauma.”

“I’m sorry,” Aimee says.

“What do you want, Rini?” Margot asks.

Margot is leading me exactly where I wanted to go. But one piece of this picture is still missing. “I want Adam to pay for what he’s done,” I say.

“What did I do to your sister anyway? Or what do you think I did?” Adam asks.

I stutter here, because I don’t know the full extent. But I know enough. That she was a teenager. That he was her professor. That he was married, stringing along a much younger girl with hero worship.

“You had an inappropriate relationship with her, just like you did with Eden, which you’re still avoiding taking responsibility for. These aren’t isolated incidents; this is your character. Your actions have consequences. You can’t chase your every whimsical desire and expect everyone to fall in line. You have to pay for what you’ve done.”

My declaration is punctuated not only by a clap of thunder but by the unexpected slam of a metal door. The bulkhead doors of the basement. When a figure appears around the corner, I cannot hide my elation. I was beginning to doubt this confrontation would happen. It’s nothing short of a miracle, my dying wish coming true.

Andi steps into the storm. My sister is outside, in the presence of other people, for the first time in years.

Hiding my sister away in the walls of the house was her idea, not mine. I thought moving away from the city would begin to cure her, like slowly sipping a magic potion. In Greenport, I gladly went out and got jobs to pay for the work, while Andi binged YouTube tutorials. But as the house started to show signs of life, nosy neighbors and enterprising press came knocking at the door. They wanted to know what two young girls were doing with decrepit property. They were aggressive, or worse, underhandedly kind, trying to ingratiate themselves for information. Andi couldn’t take it. She refused to go outside, ever, for any reason.

That ushered in her third nosedive, and for me, the most devastating.

Andi got the idea for a secret room from YouTube, a BBC interview with Anthony Horowitz showing the hidden office where he wrote all his masterpiece novels. I came home from my shift and she showed me the video. It was cool for a workspace, but what Andi was proposing was different. If word got out, she would be a freak. I would be a monster. The story would be front-page news. Andi pleaded. We could build a place for me. To be safe. To be happy.

Still, I wanted to say no. I wanted Andi to feel safe, but I also wanted her to rejoin the world of the living, which meant engaging with society, its roses and its thorns. I was afraid that would never happen if she went so far as to live in a secret apartment in the walls of the house.

I tried to get Eric to say no so I could blame it on him. At that point Eric was the only person in Greenport who had ever seen Andi. There were rumors of two girls living here, but no one could confirm or deny it. Andi made phone calls—never Zooms—and refused to come to the door for vendors, but she trusted Eric, and he never let her down. If Eric noticed that Andi didn’t leave the house—not to join us for dinner, not to go out to bars, not even for a grocery run—he didn’t say anything.