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thing with your patient go?”
    My mom waves her hand. “Problem solved. Everything’s fine.”
    Everything’s fine. That’s another thing you hear around my house a lot. My mom says it on the phone when she’s talking to friends. My dad says it to his brother when he’s asked how it’s going. They both say it to me. Not the actual words, so much. But in their frozen smiles, the happy talk at the dinner table, the way my dad sits hunched and quiet while my mom chatters on—it’s all
Everything’s fine!
    I look at the fourth chair. I don’t know why we have four, when there are only three of us. For guests, I guess. Except we haven’t had anyone over lately.
    I look over at my dad. I wonder if he’s thinking about Katherine.
    Another way you know “everything’s fine”? You never, ever hear the name Katherine in our house.
    Last year, you heard it a lot. Katherine the savior. Katherine the miracle worker. Katherine, my dad’s graduate assistant, who was such a huge help to my dad and even my mom, because she did things around the house. Not only did she answer the phone so my dad could work, help him with research, and do clerical junk, she picked up dry cleaning, shopped, and kept track of my mom’s schedule too. My mom once said Katherine was like some good fairy who had decided to live in our house and work magic with a wave of her wand.
    This was, of course, before we knew that Katherine and my dad were having a … whatever.
    No, that’s not fair. I can’t call it a whatever, it was more than that. It went on for almost a year. And I’m not entirely sure? But I think my dad was in love with Katherine. Katherine was definitely in love with him. That I know—because she told me.
    It was a Sunday afternoon in June. My mom got this weird impulse to drive to Westchester to see old friends. Like, all of a sudden: We must see David and Pauline! I wanted to stay home. So I said, That’s nice, you kids have a good time.
    My dad wanted to stay home too. He pointed out to my mom that it was Sunday and Sunday was his day to play basketball at the Y. But she said, “Skip it.”
    Usually when my mom says skip it, my dad skips.
    But this time he said, “I don’t like to let people down, Claire.”
    “Okay. Then don’t let me down,” said my mom, her voice tight and angry. “Skip it.”
    There was this long, ugly silence. Then my dad shrugged. “Okay.”
    Even at the time, I wondered why they were getting so weird about one afternoon. But then I remembered the general rule that all parents are insane and forgot about it.
    As I said, my dad’s a historian, and every so often he drags me into one of his research projects, I’m guessing to build up my academic bona fides. That week, I was supposed to be looking up some facts about the WPA. Only I decided I deserved the day off.
    So I was sitting on the couch, catching up on
True Blood
, when the door buzzer rang. Walking to the door, I thought, Maybe it’s a deranged psycho killer come to murder me.
    Peeking through the hole, I saw Katherine.
    My parents are dead, I thought instantly. They had an accident. Katherine’s here to tell me they’re dead.
    Opening the door, I said, “Hey, what’s up?”
    For the record, I liked Katherine. She was like a cool big sister. Usually my dad’s assistants threw me a hey or hello, then ignored me totally. Katherine treated me like a bud, joking with me, asking me where I shopped. It felt good to get compliments from her, because Katherine had it together. She had long brown hair and big gray eyes, and you could tell she ran and swam because she enjoyed it, not just to get a banging bod—although she did happen to have a banging bod. I always wondered if it was the exercise that made her so up and positive. Like if I ran ten miles a day, I’d feel that strong and confident too.
    But Katherine wasn’t looking so together. Her eyes were red, her arms folded tightly. She was wearing a nice skirt, but it was