PART 1
We need a million dollars.
My mother said it standing in the middle of my apartment as though nineteen years had not happened.
She said: and you’re going to give it to us, because Celestine is still your sister.
Those were the first words Leonora had said to me in almost two decades.
No apology. No hello. Not even how have you been.
I was thirty-five, standing by the windows with the rain coming down the glass, and I had let them up because my concierge rang me and said there was a couple downstairs saying they were my parents, and I wanted to see what that felt like.
My father put a thick folder down on the coffee table.
He said: Celestine made a mistake. If the money’s replaced before the audit next week, it can be handled quietly.
I looked at the folder. Then at him.
I said: and why would I be the one to fix it?
