My 13-year-old niece stood in the middle of her family’s living room holding a baseball bat, surrounded by thousands of dollars’ worth of shattered electronics. Her father was screaming, her grandfather was clutching his chest, and her fifteen-year-old sister was sobbing in a wheelchair. But what frightened me most was the expression on that little girl’s face. She looked like someone who had finally done something terrible because nobody would listen when she begged for help.
Chapter 1
The emergency call came at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning. My brother Nathan had sent one message to our family group chat: “Get over here. Nora destroyed Brooke’s entire streaming setup. Seven thousand dollars gone. We need to deal with this NOW.”
I was halfway through making coffee when I read it. Brooke was supposedly dying of leukemia, and the streaming equipment had been her final wish, purchased with money our family had sacrificed to raise. I grabbed my keys without even turning off the kitchen light.
By the time I reached Nathan’s house in suburban Columbus, three cars were already parked outside. Inside, two computer monitors lay shattered beside a ruined desktop tower. Camera lenses glittered among broken light fixtures, while a microphone dangled from its stand like something that had been strangled.
Brooke sat in her wheelchair near the fireplace, crying into both hands. Nathan’s wife, Vanessa, was on the telephone demanding that the police send someone immediately. My father, seventy-four-year-old Walter, stood near the doorway looking so pale that I thought he might collapse.
“She destroyed everything,” Dad whispered. “I emptied my savings for that equipment. I wanted Brooke to have something beautiful before…”
He couldn’t finish.
My Uncle Ray stood beside Nora, holding the aluminum softball bat he had apparently taken from her. She was pressed against the wall, one shoulder hunched unnaturally, but there were no tears on her face.
“Look at her, Jenna,” Ray snapped. “Not one tear. I took the bat away, and she just stared at me.”
“Did you hurt her?” I asked.
He looked offended. “I stopped her from doing any more damage.”
Nathan stepped forward, his face flushed with rage. “Your sister is dying, Nora. You destroyed the one thing that made her happy. Look at her and apologize.”
Nora said nothing.
Brooke lifted her head. “She came into my room before sunrise. She stood there with the bat, staring at me like she wanted to kill me. I begged her to stop, but she wouldn’t listen.”
Vanessa ended her call and pointed at Nora. “The police are coming. Maybe spending a night somewhere unpleasant will teach her what consequences mean.”
“She’s thirteen,” I said.
“Old enough to know what she’s doing.”
My aunt Dana, still wearing her hospital housekeeping uniform after an overnight shift, covered her mouth. She had worked extra hours for months to help pay Brooke’s medical expenses. Now she looked at Nora as though the child had personally betrayed everyone she loved.
“You know what your sister has been through,” Dana said. “How could you be so cruel?”
Nora finally moved. She crossed the room, sat on the couch, and folded her hands in her lap.
“Does anybody want to know why I did it?”
Nathan threw up his hands. “There is no excuse.”
“I didn’t ask for an excuse,” she replied. “I asked if anybody wanted to know.”
Something about the steadiness of her voice stopped me.
I sat beside her. “I want to know.”
Nathan started protesting, but I raised my hand.
“Nora, tell me.”
She looked at Brooke, then at the adults surrounding her.
“Brooke has been hurting me for two years.”
Vanessa gave an exhausted sigh. “Not this again.”
“She drowned Peanut,” Nora said.
Dad’s head jerked up.
Peanut was a little brown-and-white guinea pig he had given Nora for her eleventh birthday. I remembered Nora carrying the animal around in a blanket, whispering to him as though he understood every word.
“She held him underwater in the bathtub,” Nora continued. “She made me watch. When Dad came upstairs, she told him I’d dropped Peanut by accident.”
“Nora,” Nathan warned.
“You believed her. You said I needed to stop making everything about myself because Brooke was sick.”
Dad lowered himself into a chair.
“She destroyed Mom’s guitar,” Nora said. “The one Mom left me. She poured nail polish remover all over it, and when I cried, Vanessa told me I should be grateful Brooke was still alive.”
Nathan’s first wife, Melissa, had died in a car accident when Nora was eight. That guitar had been one of the few possessions Nora kept from her mother.
“She throws away my homework every Thursday,” Nora continued. “That’s why I keep getting zeros on Fridays. Mr. Ortiz called Dad six times. Brooke told him I was lazy, and he believed her.”
“Enough,” Nathan muttered.
“She records me crying and sends the videos to her friends. They call me Weepy Nora at school.”
Brooke’s sobbing had stopped.
Nora looked at Dana. “I told you at Thanksgiving when Brooke grabbed my arm and left bruises. You said sick kids sometimes get angry.”
Dana stared at the floor.
She turned toward Ray. “I told you at Easter when she hurt the rabbit you gave me. You said Brooke didn’t have long left, so I needed to be understanding.”
Ray’s grip tightened around the bat.
“Grandpa, I told you at Christmas. You said I should be patient because my sister was dying.”
Dad covered his eyes.
“Every time I asked for help, somebody told me to forgive her.” Nora swallowed. “So I stopped asking.”
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Nathan said, “None of that gives you the right to destroy seven thousand dollars of equipment.”
Nora nodded slowly.
“I know.”
She reached into her sweatshirt pocket and took out her phone.
“But that isn’t why I broke it.”
Vanessa’s expression changed.
Nora opened her photo gallery. “Yesterday, Dad left his laptop open on the kitchen counter. I was trying to find a history essay Brooke deleted. I found something else.”
Nathan took a step toward her.
“Give me that phone.”
I stood between them. “Let her finish.”
Nora held up a screenshot showing bank transfers from relatives, along with payments labeled for treatment expenses. Then she swiped to a reservation confirmation.
Three first-class airline tickets to Maui.
A luxury oceanfront resort.
A vacation costing more than nine thousand dollars.
“That’s next month,” Nora said. “When Brooke’s supposed to be getting chemotherapy in Boston.”
Vanessa opened her mouth, then closed it.
Nora swiped again.
“This is their private group chat. Dad, Vanessa, and Brooke.”
She read a message from Brooke.
“These fake wheelchair days are killing me. My legs hurt from sitting around pretending.”
Below it was Nathan’s reply.
“Six more months, sweetheart. Then we’ll have enough saved to start over somewhere else.”
Vanessa had written, “Remember to cough during Sunday’s family visit. And cry if anyone brings up the wish foundation.”
The last message was Brooke’s.
“Can’t wait for Hawaii. These idiots believe anything. Nora’s the easiest one to fool.”
My heart seemed to stop.
I turned toward Brooke. Her cheeks were pink, her arms strong, her eyes suddenly dry.
“Brooke,” I said. “Stand up.”
She gripped the wheelchair arms. “Aunt Jenna, I can’t.”
“Stand up.”
Nathan began crying. Vanessa shook her head, whispering that we didn’t understand.
Then Brooke rose from the wheelchair and walked across the living room.
Behind us, someone knocked on the front door.
The police had arrived.
