62.

In time, the tourists stop coming.

2005.

McKenna celebrates her thirty-third birthday with a bowl of instant pudding. Tapioca. She doesn’t need much. Canned soups, bread, eggs, milk. She makes everything last. She turns the thermostat as low as she can stand it, spends evenings curled up in Misty’s old quilt, fills pages by candlelight. Her hand cramps.

When Grandma sold her house and moved in with the nuns five years ago, McKenna lugged all of Murray’s inventions back here, stored them in the attic. Sometimes she goes up there and picks through the boxes, reconnects with something. Murray doesn’t know she has these things. He’d be embarrassed. They phone each other every month, although both of his ears are quite deaf now, and he hates his hearing aids, so conversation is awkward. He calls to make sure she got the check.

Her faith has deepened. Some days, it feels like she really is in harmony with her creator, like she has given herself, body and soul, to Jesus. She knows she must serve Him. She knows, in fact, that she is blessed with the chance to serve Him. He will forgive her sins. Even when she confesses that she deceived Grandma for so many years. Even when she confesses that her last words to Audrey, her words about Grandma’s change of heart, were a lie meant only to fester like an open sore. Jesus will forgive her when she confesses.

Other days, McKenna is certain God will never love her. Not until she changes. Not until she stops destroying the temple. Her teeth are sensitive, stripped. Her throat is hot agony. Dark green welts form on her thighs from the slightest stove bump. Her menstruations have stopped. She is officially not a woman. The nuns visit, pray with her, urge her to seek help. The ones McKenna grew up with—Sister Pee Vee, Sister Max, Sister Juliet—all of them are gone now, but fresh ones, young ones, some younger than McKenna, have taken their places.

If you won’t see a doctor, they say, at least change your lifestyle. The Dominicans, they say, are a good order. They are always looking for new sisters. Your silence, your reflectiveness, will be put to a divine purpose. This house is unhealthy, they say. It is killing you.

One morning, Sister Pauline comes by. Her knock is softer than usual.

“Annabelle went to be with God last night,” she says, taking McKenna’s hand. “She’s at rest.”

McKenna smiles. Swallows.