The Vanishing Half

She suddenly felt that her sister would scream, so she squeezed her hand over Stella’s mouth and seconds later, felt Stella’s hand on her own. Something shifted between them in that moment. Before, Stella seemed as predictable as a reflection. But in the closet, for the first time ever, Desiree hadn’t known what her sister might do.

This was his gift, a short memory. A long memory could drive a man crazy.

But the truth is that when he’d first started hunting hiding people, he’d tried to find his folks. His failure was swift and humiliating; he didn’t know enough about his parents to even

Sometimes who you were came down to the small things.

That was the thrill of youth, the idea that you could be anyone.

This was comfort, no longer wanting anything.

Sometimes who you were came down to the small things.

You couldn’t separate the shame from being caught doing something from the shame of the act itself

The line cook wondered if it had been Desiree after all, since Lou was turning sixty in May and still too vain to wear his eyeglasses.

In that little farm town, nothing surprising ever happened, not since the Vignes twins had disappeared.