“So what happened, anyway? How did he die?”

Monty needed to be home before his mother. Since the death of his father, she’d been working longer hours, and taking out frustrations on her children. Monty sat in Zina’s living room, discussing the unfolding events of his father’s passing. It hadn’t been a surprise, really. The most surprising part of it all was that anybody believed the man would kill himself.

“They’re saying it was a suicide. There was a note by the cellar where he was found.”

He’d always wanted to be like Zina. She was an accomplished and confident woman, though she hadn’t always been like this. In just a few short weeks, Zina was getting married. If you’d asked her five years ago if she ever believed anybody would fall in love with her, she’d have awkwardly avoided the question.

She was on her phone, enjoying a rare day off work. She worked long hours and came home drained, and still couldn’t seem to find a reason to slow down. “That doesn’t seem like something he’d do. Maybe it was an accident. He could have fallen down the stairs or something.”

“But there was a note.” Atticus was home. Monty saw his car pull up in the front street. “Why would there be a note if it was an accident?”

“This is my youngest, Sariah. She’s not much of a conversationalist, but she’s got a great body.”

Monty hated his speaking voice. Sometimes, he tried to make it sound lower, but this hurt his chest and didn’t make much difference anyway. In a year and a half, he’d be eighteen. This seemed like forever away. “I don’t know.” Zina put her phone down, greeting her fiance when he came in the door. Her home was quiet, tidy; River was nowhere to be seen. He never was. “This whole thing is suspicious, anyway. He probably got on someone’s wrong side or something.”

Atticus was a serious, intimidating man. He looked at Monty, not smiling; he never smiled. He’d done nothing to Monty, but he made the boy feel anxious. That morning, he’d called Zina after his mother left for work, and she’d come to pick him up for a visit.

“Do you need a ride home, Monty?”

It was late afternoon. There was really no telling, these days, when Lillian would arrive home from work. If Monty wasn’t there when she arrived, he’d be badly punished.

“Yes, please.”

“Zina? When did you know you were a girl?”

Monty was nine years old when he began to question himself. Zina, ten years his senior, began medically transitioning several years after she moved out, and offered Monty advice on the days he was feeling dysphoric.

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She was eighteen years old at the time, in the midst of packing to move out on her own. She’d been dating Atticus online for six months when she left, moving instantly into the home he’d inherited from his grandparents. Shutting the door, she sat down beside Monty. “I think I was around twelve? I don’t know. Maybe I’ve always known.”

He was uncomfortable, all the time. When puberty began, everything got worse.

“I think I’m a boy. You can’t tell anyone.”

Monty’s father never knew the truth about his youngest child. Though Hannah had threatened to tell many times, she never seemed to follow through.

“Zina, when I move out, can I live with you?”

She drove a smart car which seated two, and always listened to the radio. “Of course. I’ll even come pick you up.”

It was likely he’d run away, like some of his siblings had done. It was a miracle any of them had stayed for eighteen years. He was twelve years old when Joseph ran away, and envied him. At one point, he’d even asked to come along. A year later, it was Mosiah who left, and then Zeb. Monty often wondered where his siblings went when they first left. Nobody had any money. Most hadn’t had a place to stay.

Shortly after his death, Orion’s body had been given an autopsy. Lillian insisted one of the children had tried to frame his murder as a suicide, despite there being no reason to think this. It was hard to know what to believe.

“Maybe it was Mom,” said Hannah, a few days before. “That’s why she’s trying so hard to act innocent.” It was weird, certainly, for a woman to care so little about the loss of her husband. It was silly to think Lillian wasn’t as brainwashed as the rest of them.

The farm was unusually quiet, the cellar area opened again. Canaan ran around the backyard, giggling. He didn’t do this a lot. Lazarus sat on the edge of a backyard chair, not noticing Monty sneaking past. Asher hadn’t been home in three days, and Monty didn’t blame him.

“Mom?”

Her car was in the driveway. The house was warm, even with the windows open. Samantha, who spent most of her free time in the front room adjacent to the kitchen, was noticeably absent. Perhaps LIllian was preoccupied, and hadn’t realized Monty’s absence, though this was unlikely - the woman had eyes like a hawk.

“Mom, are you home?”

The doors to the living room were glass and surprisingly heavy. As a child, Monty had run into them, leaving him with a large bruise on his forehead. Through the slight opening in the door, Lillian’s brown hair poked through. Something was unusual here. Next to his mother’s car in the driveway was a large open spot where Samantha always parked.

On the wall outside the living room, Lilian had hung embroidered cloths containing her favourite scripture verses. It was confusing that a woman who claimed to love the words of the scripture could pick and choose which ones she listened to at all.

Monty felt anxious. This had been becoming more common for him. When he nudged the door open, Lillian’s head fell from the wall and onto the floor. “Mom?” She was pale, cool, maybe having been here a while. It was strange that nobody else had done anything about her body. It was obvious that she was dead.

Shuffling slowly across the floor, Monty grabbed the cordless phone from the computer desk, quickly dialing the number of the local police.