Kyle came to the house three weeks later. On his own.

He stood on the porch, on the step I'd just fixed, and didn't knock for a long time. I watched him through the window.

When I opened the door, he couldn't look at me.

“Ethan read the pages,” he said. “My son. He found them in my car. All forty-seven.”

He swallowed.

“He asked me if that's how I talk about him when he's not there. My own kid. Fifteen years old. Looking at me like he didn't know who I was.”

Kyle's face crumpled.

“I started that chat, Claire. Donnelly HQ. It was my idea. It started as jokes. Then it got meaner. Then it was just… what we did. It made us feel like a team. And you were the one we made fun of, because you were the one who was always there.”

He was crying now. Properly crying, on Mom's porch.

“Mom saw everything. And she still hugged me at Thanksgiving. She still said she loved me.”

I looked at my little brother. The baby of the family. Forty years old and sobbing on the step.

Don't hate your brother and sister.

I opened the door wider.

“Come inside,” I said. “I'll make coffee. We'll use the good china.”