"I want to know why," I said.
"Marlo," my mother said, "this isn't the time."
"It's the time. I want to know why she did it. I want to know why you let her."
"Go get your sister," Marcus said.
He said it to me. I looked at him, and he looked back, and I understood that he wasn't sending me away. He was handing it to me. It was mine to ask. So I went up and knocked on Hadley's door, and when she didn't answer I opened it, and she was sitting on her bed against the headboard with her knees up and her softball glove on her lap, the way she has since she was six, like a stuffed animal. She looked at me with her red face.
"Come downstairs," I said.
"No."
"Hadley. You cut up my dress in the middle of the living room. You don't get to do it and then hide in your room. Come downstairs and tell me why."
She came. She sat at the kitchen table across from Marcus with the glove still on her left hand. I didn't sit. I stood in the doorway with my arms at my sides. My mother stayed at the sink.
"Why," I said.
Hadley looked at the glove.