He finished his sandwich, pushing the plate and empty glass aside to take both her hands in his.

“If you have to go back to New York, I’ll be with you. At your side. I promise. There’s no looking over your shoulder now. Only the future and it’s all good. I have to ask you, are you going to reply to these allegations with how upset Rennie gets after the calls with them?”

“I’ve tried too hard to be fair. Even after this mess. I wanted her to have some contact and connection to her father. Ken wasn’t always the man I had to kill. I loved him once. He loved me, I truly believe he did. So I wanted to honor that and let Rennie have that, because there will come a time when I have to tell her the whole story and I don’t want her to hate him or me. I’ve made so many mistakes. Failed so many times.” She covered her face with her hands.

“There are many words that come to mind when I think of you. Failure isn’t one of them.”

She tore her hands from her eyes and looked at him. “I have failed at everything in my life but dancing. I saved Rennie from Ken and I’d do it again. But I killed her father. I took her away from her paternal grandparents, but it was necessary. They are bad and wrong and they don’t even love her. How can they not love her?”

He shook his head and took one of her hands back, holding it between his. “I don’t know. It’s impossible for me to understand how anyone could resist Rennie. And you did what you had to do, Elise. It was self-defense. You’re not a failure because your exhusband was a crazy, f**ked up junkie. That’s his failure.”

“I am a shitty daughter. I was a shitty sister. I was a shitty wife. I never really had any friends outside of the other dancers, and sometimes not even them, because the competition for roles . . .” She shrugged. “I am a total failure but for two things. First is my dancing. I’ve been good at it since I was four and I’ve achieved all I’d ever dreamed of and more as a dancer. Later, but far more important, is Rennie. I’ve made mistakes, yes, but I’ve been a good mother, the best I could under the circumstances even if I’m not perfect. I’ve tried to be better at things, but . . .” She licked her lips, not finishing the sentence..

He moved quickly, sitting in the chair beside hers. “Do you honestly think you’re a failure? Because when I look at you, when I know you, Elise, I don’t see it. No, don’t interrupt for a moment.” He put his finger against her lips. “I see how you are with your parents; you’re not a shitty daughter. I see the little things you do for them both, the special tea for your dad’s joints, the way you include your mother at your studio so she feels important, so you can share your love of dancing with her. What I see is not failure, but a family. They moved out here to be with you and Rennie because they genuinely want to be with you two. As for your brother . . . Tell me. You told me some, the highlights if you will. Tell me why you think you’re a shitty sister.”

“College was when it all seemed to get out of control for him. He was always looking for more. He gorged himself on everything, which is part of why he was such an amazing performer. He went to keggers and got into minor trouble. But my parents always made excuses for him; he was the favorite, you see. I don’t blame them for it. He was, he was like a dragonfly, flitting through your life, iridescent and magical. You couldn’t take your eyes from him. I knew he’d started using speed, but I didn’t tell on him. I should have right at the very start. I didn’t and he died.”

“He was how much older than you when he started using speed?” He looked at his watch. “When is Rennie due back here?”

“Five. My parents are going to a lecture at the UW tonight and then out to dinner with the speaker. He’s one of my dad’s old colleagues.”

Brody nodded. “Okay then, we’ve got a while.” He stood and drew her into the living room, where they snuggled on the couch. “He was five years older than me. He was twenty-one or twentytwo when it first started. He’d moved to the city. I knew, but I didn’t say anything to my parents. And then I met Ken and it all went to hell.”

“Before you expand on your failures as a wife, why don’t you tell me what a typical day was like for you when you were seventeen. What was your schedule?”

She glared at him. “Got up at five to get into the city for dance classes in the morning. I’d finished up high school by the time I was sixteen. I graduated early. I always planned on taking college courses, but never got around to it. There was rehearsal for whatever production I was in at the time. More classes in the late afternoon. I ended up moving into an apartment in Manhattan because the commute got to be too much.”

“You lived on your own at seventeen? In New York City?”

“You raised kids at that age! I shared an apartment in a relatively murder-free neighborhood with three other dancers. My grandmother had left a trust; it paid my share of the rent until I joined the company, and, well, I was still dirt poor for some time to come. Funny though, poor as I was, it was such a magical time. I was on my own and doing what I’d always wanted to do. And then I met Ken.”

“On to your failure as a wife then.”

“Ha ha, it’s all a joke to you.”

“Do you really think that, Elise? I’m making light, yes, but it’s not a joke that you’ve endured and survived and been so successful and you see yourself as a failure. I want to understand because I don’t see it.”