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    The Most Dangerous Thing
    The Most Dangerous Thing
    The Most Dangerous Thing
    Ebook396 pages6 hours

    The Most Dangerous Thing

    By Laura Lippman

    3.5/5

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    “One of the best novelists around, period.”
    —Washington Post

    “Lippman has enriched literature as a whole.
    —Chicago Sun-Times

    One of the most acclaimed novelists in America today, Laura Lippman has greatly expanded the boundaries of mystery fiction and psychological suspense with her Tess Monaghan p.i. series and her New York Times bestselling standalone novels (What the Dead Know, Life Sentences, I’d Know You Anywhere, etc.). With The Most Dangerous Thing, the multiple award winning author—recipient of the Anthony, Edgar®, Shamus, and Agatha Awards, to name but a few—once again demonstrates how storytelling is done to perfection. Set once again in the well-wrought environs of Lippman’s beloved Baltimore, it is the shadowy tale of a group of onetime friends forced to confront a dark past they’ve each tried to bury following the death of one of their number. Rich in the compassion and insight into flawed human nature that has become a Lippman trademark while telling an absolutely gripping story, The Most Dangerous Thing will not be confined by genre restrictions, reaching out instead to captive a wide, diverse audience, from Harlan Coben and Kate Atkinson fans to readers of Jodi Picoult and Kathryn Stockett.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateAug 23, 2011
    ISBN9780062092588
    Author

    Laura Lippman

    Since Laura Lippman’s debut, she has been recognized as a distinctive voice in mystery fiction and named one of the “essential” crime writers of the last 100 years. Stephen King called her “special, even extraordinary,” and Gillian Flynn wrote, “She is simply a brilliant novelist.” Her books have won most of the major awards in her field and been translated into more than twenty-five languages. She lives in Baltimore and New Orleans with her teenager.

    Read more from Laura Lippman

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    Reviews for The Most Dangerous Thing

    3.5/5

    48 ratings41 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This wasn't a bad book. It was just okay for me. I liked that when the author went back in time she actually marked the chapter when the season/month and year. That is one of my biggest irritations with authors, when they flash back and don't tell you and you have to figure it out. This is about five friends and what happened to them as children and how it shaped their lives. I found it very subtle that it had changed their lives. It wasn't obvious to me and maybe I wasn't paying too close attention. It's not an in your face type of book, not scary, not overly sad, it was just well written.
    • 4/5
      I literally came home one day and found this one on my porch directly from the publisher and I have no idea where it came from. This book surprised me and I liked it a lot. The characters were great, all having some kind of quirk. The main character of the story Gordon or Go-go dies in an automobile accident and the former friends are left behind trying to make sense of what happened. Through the novel, you learn what happened in the past affected Gordon and changed the outcome of his life. The only negative aspect of this book is that it jumps around from past to present a lot and that kind of drove me crazy. I do like how the author captures the friendship and its changes thru time. Great character and a great plot, you literally cannot put this book down and want to know how it ends. I highly recommend it and I am so glad I got the chance to read and review it.
    • 4/5
      Pretty good, though I found the ending underwhelming.
    • 3/5
      This book was ok. I so badly wanted to win it and I did but reading it didn't meet my expectations. I'm sure I'll read more of her books in the future.
    • 2/5
      I did not like this book anywhere near as much as I’ve liked Lippman’s other novels. She states that this is the most personal book she’s written, setting it in the area she grew up in, and I think the plot suffers for it.The story follows the adult versions of childhood friends Gwen, McKey (nee Mickey), Tim, and Sean, awkwardly brought together after the death of the boys’ younger brother, Gordon. They are all keeping a terrible secret, which is supposed to be revealed to us in drips and drabs along the way, both through the present and the past.The point of view jumps from character to character, which does not bother me at all. However, during the parts from the point of view of the children, the point of view is an unspecified “we”. It’s not like it’s one of the children and it’s a simple switch to first person – it’s apparent that it’s not any particular one of them. Those sections drove me crazy, and completely distracted me from the story.The plot meanders along, and really struggled. By the end, it was difficult to muster any strong emotions about the “big” secret. It felt like Lippman really wanted to use this setting, but had a hard time finding a story to go along with it. I think she was too close to it.
    • 3/5
      This author has been a favorite of mine for some time, but I did not think this story was one of her best. I just kept waiting for something to happen--anticipating some wow factor to the story. It is the story of 3 families who each have their own secrets. When secrets are revealed many lives are hurt or destroyed. It is just not one of the best Lippman books and I do not recommend it.
    • 4/5
      Separated by the passing of time, a group of five childhood friends reunite at a funeral. Long gone are the carefree days when they would spend hours together exploring the woods near their suburban homes. Those were adventurous days filled with the thrill of going off on their own, experiencing a little danger and fun, and forming a bond over the secrets they shared. As they eventually grew toward adulthood, they drifted apart; but one secret remained untold.Now one of the five, Gordon, has died in a car accident. But was it an accident or was it a suicide? Has someone found out about what happened one night in the woods? Did this have something to do with Gordon’s death?There are two stories to be told. One takes place back in the 70s and the other in the present. We alternate between the two with the point of view changing as each character tells a part of the story from their perspective. The events meshed together so well that, for the most part, I did not have any problem following the changes in narrator.These were not the most likable characters; early on their many flaws become apparent. But flawed characters didn’t stop me from enjoying the story. On the contrary, the author wove together a mystery spanning several decades into a drama about friendship, personal growth, becoming an adult and accepting responsibility.I listened to the audiobook and the production was well done. Linda Emond narrated at a nice pace, was pleasant to listen to and did a good job with her tone and inflection, making each character sound distinct.This was my first Laura Lippman novel and I am pleased to have experienced her wonderful storytelling. The book was well written with a plot that moved along at an accelerating pace towards an ending where the pieces came together and the secret was revealed. A shocking secret? No, but not what I was expecting either. It was a surprise and a thought-provoking ending.
    • 3/5
      ‘As five we were mighty, the points on a star…Once we five joined, it was never boys against girls…Two of our triangles cut themselves off and ran away together, and we were never whole again. Never.’Years ago, they were the best of friends. But as time passed, they grew apart, became adults with families of their own, and began to forget about the past – and the terrible lies they shared.But now Gordon, the youngest and wildest of the five, has died and the others are thrown together for the first time in years.Could their long-ago lie be the reason for their troubles today? Is it more dangerous to admit to what they’d done or is it the strain of keeping the secret that is beginning to wear down on their souls.My Thoughts:What appealed to me about this book was it’s cover and the fact that mark Billingham has found the book compelling and suspenseful. That alone is good enough for me.However I just can’t make up my mind about it. I enjoyed the story of the children growing up, running around wild and free in the woods until that fatal day. The second half of the story focused I think on every character in the book which I found a bit too much. The final section had the big reveal which having read this far I just had to find out. Which infact wasn’t really so big as what I hoped it would be.Did I like this book, well maybe but there were things that I didn’t like. I felt I was watching one of them movies that I just had to watch to see how things were going to end and then I felt well why did I bother. What bugged me was that there was another person who narrates the first part about the children and that person is never known and never revealed. If there were clues then I just didn’t find them.Books like this niggle me because I never can make up my mind if I liked it or not. Part of me says yes and part of says no way. The more I muster on it the more I think I am going to say no I didn’t enjoy it but maybe if it were made into a tv series/film then I would watch it to see how it is potrayed.
    • 3/5
      Another one of Lippman's enjoyable suspense stories, this one with a big cast of characters to root for and against. The book starts with the tragic death of "GoGo" Halloran, who in a drunk driving incident kills himself, either accidentally or not. GoGo was the "bad boy" of the three Halloran brothers, who as children played with two girls, Gwen and her bold friend Mickey. Was GoGo's death an accident, or was he haunted by a death that the children witnessed many years ago?I'm not doing justice to the book with my plot synopsis, because there is a lot else going on: Gwen's mother's frustrated artistic ambitions, Sean's controlling wife, Mrs. Halloran's innocent love for all her boys. I can't say I was as much in love with this book as with some of Lippman's others, but it may be me who is a little off, because I'm not liking much these days.
    • 4/5
      I am relatively new to the mystery genre. I have read them in the past, but mostly because the mystery was a byproduct of a romance I was wrapped up in. Very few times have I picked up a novel because I wanted to play detective and figure out the whodunit. This novel wasn’t so much a whodunit as a shocking conclusion to a disturbing occurrence. I was completely involved in this story. I wanted to know what happened that caused the unlikely friendship between five souls to fall so beautifully and tragically apart. As a mystery, I was held in suspense throughout the most of the novel. Ms. Lippman gave snippets of information, clues revealed through the past and present by several characters, but ultimately she left the big “Holy Chicken!” moment for the end. I have to admit I was thinking of rating this novel lower, mainly because of the disturbing nature at the core of the mystery. Then I realized how brilliant Ms. Lippman truly is. I didn’t suspect that finish at all. I appreciated that she made her villain flawed, truly unsuspecting much like the other characters on the novel. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery, I was underwhelmed by a couple of the characters, particularly Tally Robison. I think Tally would have made a fascinating character in her own novel but much of her story and motivation gets lost in this one. I really didn’t see the point in revealing so many details of her past; it added nothing to the story. A character I really enjoyed getting to know was Doris Halloran. She had a touch of creepy about her. She’s sensitive, slightly delusional, a bit vindictive. Overall I think she was plain ol’ misunderstood. There were a couple of big surprised in the novel that has nothing to do with the mystery but with Ms. Lippman’s literary prowess. There is a bit in the book when Doris tells of reading and loneliness. She is only twenty pages from the end of a novel she’s reading, but puts it down because she hates going to bed with a book finished. Mainly because… “It’s a little less lonely, knowing she has a group of people waiting for her in the morning, people who can’t go on unless she opens the book.” Ms. Lippman also writes about forgiveness. “Allowing one’s self to be forgiven is just as hard as forgiving. Harder in some ways. Because to be forgiven, one first has to admit to being at fault.” That my friends, is some good chicken. And the main reason why I read. This novel has made me a Laura Lippman fan. I have I’d Know You Anywhere in my TRB pile and frankly, I can’t wait to dig into that one.
    • 3/5
      They have been keeping a secret since childhood, and like most secrets do, it’s haunting them. Five friends: Gwen, Mickey, Tim, Sean, and Go-Go never talk about what happened in the woods that day, and it inevitably stretched their friendship to the limit. Putting distance between them was the best way to forget. They aren’t the only ones holding that information hostage though; some of the parents have held their tongues in hopes of protecting them too, but some secrets beg to be told. When one of the five friends dies they are brought together again to realize that there is a mystery lying under the truth that they have struggled to believe all along. This story is told from many character perspectives, jumping from past and present, giving the reader an inside view of their lives and how they saw the events unfold. That’s an interesting way to approach a story, especially a mystery. The characters were described well enough for me to develop some love-hate opinions of them, and the twists at the end were refreshing and surprising. It’s downfall for me was that the start was slow, as was the pacing. I would have enjoyed the story more if the pacing would have picked up some speed, but overall the characters and the surprising twists made this a good read. I would recommend this to anyone who appreciates mystery and to be shocked at the outcome.
    • 4/5
      First Line: They throw him out when he falls off the barstool.Something happened one summer in Baltimore that made five best friends go their separate ways throughout the rest of school and on into their adult lives. When one of them dies and the rest slowly come together for the funeral, they begin to learn that the past never stays buried. It must be dealt with or there will be unwelcome consequences.Once again Lippman does an excellent job at building suspense (just what happened that summer???) and diving into character and motivation. Those remembered days of childhood are every bit as clearly delineated as the present day trials the characters all have as grownups.This book is a bit of a rarity for me-- and it's all due to Laura Lippman's skill as a writer. You see, I really didn't give a rap for any of the characters. There's not one single person in that book that I liked. If this leads to you believe that I hated this book, I wouldn't be surprised. But I did like it. Lippman makes that mysterious thing that happened on that long ago summer so compelling that I couldn't stop reading. I had to find out what happened and which of the characters were responsible.Normally this character-driven reader prefers to have at least one character to like, respect, or admire. In the case of The Most Dangerous Thing, I kept thinking to myself, "You're all one big batch of messed-up people. What did you do to get that way?" Lippman answered my question in one beautifully written page after another.
    • 4/5
      Laura Lippman's `The Most Dangerous Thing' takes a dark look at childhood, and its secrets and lies.Five happenstance friends - the three wild Halloran boys, tomboy Mickey, and chubby Gwen - form a wonderous childhood `pack' as they play in the woods near their homes. The astute reader knows what dangers may lie ahead as the children discover a tumbledown cabin and its ragged inhabitant. Events spiral out of control, parents enter the picture, and decisions are made that will affect the lives of all five children. No one leaves the woods untouched by the secrets of childhood, and when the four adult former friends gather for the funeral of the fifth, who died in questionable circumstances, memories of their summer in the woods surface.Laura Lippman is, of course, famous for her highly successful Tess Monaghan series. And in `The Most Dangerous Thing' she returns to her Baltimore roots and creates an ambiance and story close to her own heart. But be warned: this isn't a Tess novel. It is a dark portrait of the human condition and a dark world where it isn't always safe to venture into the depths of the woods - or oneself.
    • 4/5
      I’ve been a fan of Laura Lippman and her Tess Monaghan books for a long time. Although the novels in the Tess series are enjoyable, it’s in the stand-alone works that Lippman really shines. Each book is better than the last and The Most Dangerous Thing is no exception.The story revolves around five tween/teenagers growing up in Baltimore in the last 1970s. The friends are as close as can be – think of each of them as arms on a five pointed start with their common friendship forming the center. Switching to the present, one of the friends dies in an accident bringing them all together again to revisit the past. As adults they can look back on their youth and examine the moment, an accident, that shattered their bond.Lippman nails the tone of this book. When the narrator tells us about the accident through the eyes of the kids, the event seems subdued. The accident happens, the adults in their lives take care of things, and life goes on. Although the kids drift apart, they aren’t able to articulate how their lives have changed. They are too self-centered, in the way that only teens can be, to be reflective. As adults, when they re-examine that defining time in their lives, the story has added depth of emotion and an understanding of consequences only maturity and experience can bring.This isn’t a story of black and white or right and wrong. It’s a collection of people continually making instinctual choices based on their life experience. Sometimes they get it right and sometimes their stupidity wins out. It’s about people doing their best to thrive and the weaknesses that slow them down. It’s about flawed human beings, and about life.
    • 4/5
      Laura Lippman is another favourite author who has taken a break from their recurring character (Tess Monaghan) to pen another stand alone novel.The Most Dangerous Thing is the story of five childhood friends - Mickey, Gwen, Sean, Tim and Gordon aka Gogo - in the Baltimore area. They spend the summer of 1977 running through the woods near their homes, until a tragic event changes everything. Fast forward - Gogo has died and the others gather for the first time in twenty years. Was Gogo's death an accident or suicide? Could the events from that long ago time still be affecting the present? For each of them? What really happened? They never spoke of it aloud after that day.Each character (and a few more including the parents of the five) recounts their take on the event and what ripples and changes it may have caused in their lives. But the incident is not the only topic of each character - their hopes, dreams and disappointments are all fodder for each 'vignette'. Definitely a character driven novel.I chose to listen to this book in audio format and I'm glad I did. I don't honestly think I would have enjoyed it as much in written form. (Or would it have kept my interest) Listening to reader Linda Emond made it a little more intimate, more like listening to someones thoughts and conversations with themselves. Emond's voice has rich undertones. She reads in a well modulated tone and pace, conveying the introspection of each character well.The events of that day are central to the book and I wanted to find out what really happened. I don't think you could slot this book into any one category. There is a mystery, but It would also fit just as well into contemporary fiction - exploring the themes of friendship, betrayal, jealousy, guilt and much more. A cameo appearance by Tess Monoghan ensures that her life is moving forward and that we can hope to see a new book about her soon. The most dangerous thing?.......a secret?.....or the truth?......
    • 3/5
      I liked the way Lippman told the story from multiple points of view and different time periods and then wove them all together with a twist at the end.
    • 2/5
      I can't say this was a favorite read at all. At times, it was monotonous to slog through the lives and history of the various characters--there are many characters, so there is a lot of background. I did not really connect to one person. In fact, I cringed every time I encountered the moniker "Go-Go". As one of the more supposedly sympathetic persons, I felt nothing for Go-Go; no connection with his personal demons. However, The Most Dangerous Thing is written by a gifted master who very talented in her craft. I did want to see were Lippman's efforts led me. I had to hear the story out. What unfolded was family drama, meant to be sensational in its punch, but to me, disappointing in its finale. In the end, life just went on with no real personal growth or revelations for these people. If these suburban Baltimore families had never existed in their fictional world, no loss to me at all.
    • 4/5
      Laura Lippman admits that this is the most biographical novel she's written, setting it in what is essentially her childhood neighborhood. But that's where the similarity stops--the only secrets she's keeping is how she comes up with such riveting fiction time and time again.Her characters in "The Most Dangerous Thing", however, have been keeping a secret for many, many years. Something happened to the little neighborhood collection of five once inseparable children that that formed them into the long estranged adults they have become. That secret clearly haunts them still, especially as four of them gather for the fifth's funeral, all wondering if it was really an accidental car crash or if it was suicide by the one person they think was most scarred by the secret that they keep. Flashbacks to their childhoods help move the present day psychological suspense at a rather quick pace, pages turn rapidly as the puzzle pieces come together and they learn that they are not the only ones who have been keeping secrets. This book is truly Lippman at her finest.
    • 3/5
      Engagingly written, but the story wasn't all that interesting to me.
    • 4/5
      Laura Lippman is a writer with a unique voice that I happen to enjoy. It always takes me a while to get "into" her books.... I start reading thinking, 'Meh, this is ok' and end up really being drawn into her stories.The ending of this book is both a twist AND not unexpected. It feels natural. A twist that isn't unrealistic, I guess.I know that not everyone remembers their childhood thoughts as well as others do. If you are one of those people who DO remember well, you'll find her writing nostalgic. Not sure if that's the right word exactly. Accurate-nostalgic-believable.I'm not sure that I would recommend this as a first intro to Lippman's books, but if you're a fan already, you'll enjoy it.
    • 2/5
      This book was not one of my favorites. In fact it was quite boring! it was about three families who kept secrets and in the end it affected all their lives.
    • 3/5
      I usually enjoy mysteries, but I really didn't like this book at all. The story moved along at a snail’s pace, and I didn't like reading the repetitious thoughts of so many depressed, sleazy characters.
    • 3/5
      Laura Lippman is one of my favorite authors so when I was given this book to review, I thought "great" I'll have a good book to read and a easy review to write. Nope. For me, this book fell short of Ms. Lippman's usual great stories. I had a very difficult time getting into it even though I was born and raised in Baltimore (where the story is set) and I was comfortable with the location/setting. The story lagged. A full hundred pages into it and I was still wondering what was going on. The characters seem 1 dimensional as if you could take them all and put them together to make one decent character. The story was choppy - bouncing from one time frame to another and never really getting any rhythm.I'm really sorry to say that I didn't like it, but I will not abandon an author of MS. Lippman's talents just because of one book.
    • 1/5
      In the late 1970s, five childhood friends (Gwen, Mickey, Sean, Tim and Go Go)spend their free time exploring the woods outside their Baltimore neighbourhood. Then a tragedy occurs which changes their lives and those of their parents. It is a tragedy which they never discuss until Go Go's death (accident or suicide?) brings them together. Gradually the truth of what really happened in the woods is revealed. The viewpoints of the friends are given, as are those of the parents. Everyone's motivation is examined. The problem is that irrelevant information is often included. For example, Gwen's mother was an unfulfilled artist who constantly wondered whether she made a mistake by marrying young. These details add nothing to the plot. Virtually every character suffers from depression and guilt about some choice made in the past. In essence there is too much analysis and retrospection and not enough drama. The revelations at the end are anticlimactic because it is obvious which characters lied and what they lied about.In the recounting of the childhood escapades, the use of first person plural narration - the "royal we" - is very annoying. Sentences like, "And then we met the man who lived in the woods" suggest that one of the five is the narrator, but then all five are identified in the third person. This narrative technique does nothing but irritate. Collective experience and/or guilt can be conveyed without resorting to such distracting tactics. Furthermore, the childhood friends are all so self-absorbed that suggesting they can think or speak as a unit is not convincing.The novel examines a number of subjects: friendship, jealousy, secrecy, guilt, and forgiveness. Obviously, the idea that the past and its secrets are always part of the present is a major theme.What is the most dangerous thing? A secret? The truth? People's good intentions? The reader will have to decide for him/herself if he/she decides to read this not-so-thrilling "thriller."
    • 5/5
      Some will argue that THE MOST DANGEROUS THING is again not strictly crime fiction (I seem to be reading a few of those recently) and I think it will appeal to many who do not generally read the genre. That said, there is murder, and there is mystery aplenty.Five children, three boys from one family and two girls from separate families, four of them of an age and one of the boys quite a bit younger, become a coalition, a group. Over a period of three years they explore the swampy forest on the land that abuts their homes. Their parents are busy leading their lives and are not particularly concerned what their children might be up to. Quite a considerable part of the novel details what growing up in these very different families is like. When they are finally and inevitably separated by school, college, or a new house, they and their parents share a secret that the children, and some of the parents, only half understand.The perspective of the novel is nearly three decades on when one of the five dies in a car accident that could be suicide. Lippman cleverly fills the reader in on the separate paths each of the children have taken in life. The structure of the novel is designed to make you think: from sections labelled GO-GO, US, THEM, and PITY THEM to the occasional time frames used as chapter headings: Summer 1978, Autumn 1979 etc.So, Lippman probably does achieve what it seems she set out to do: a cross-genre novel that talks about growing up, shared secrets, and things you may find it hard to talk about later in life.A very interesting read.
    • 4/5
      In the Dickeyville area of Baltimore, five friends meet and bond. They form a group that they compare with the five arms of a starfish. They are Gwen, the Halloran brothers, Tim, Sean and Go Go, and the other girl, Mickey Wykoff.They lived in a middle-class neighborhood where their parents didn't have to monitor their activities.the story moves from the late 1970s to current time.In the current day, Gwen returns home to care for her aged father who had injured his hip in a fall. While home, she meets Sean Halloran who informs her that his brother Go Go had died from suicide.We learn of the character's lives since their childhood. Gwen had married a successful surgeon but doesn't know if she wants to live in a home where he is the only thing that mattered.In 1978 the friends used to play in Leaken Park and while exploring came upon an abandoned cabin now being used by a homeless man they refer to as Chicken George.The next year, Sean and Gwen were dating and Mickey and Go Go are at the cabin and there is an incident with Chicken George.The facts of this incident vary depending on who is telling the story but it has a major effect on the futures of the friends and their parents.the novel is entertaining but leaves the reader with a sadness that the innocence of childhood is such a fleeting thing.
    • 5/5
      Wow. A powerhouse of a novel! I've always liked Laura Lippman's stand -alone's better than her Tess Monaghan novels. In this stand-alone she brings Tess into the picture. Granted it's a small part of the story but I thought it blended well. This suspenseful novel is about 5 adults who were friends for a year or so in their younger days. Something bad happened and all have suffered in some way from the incident. The writing and characterization is grand, and just when you think you have it figured out....watch out! This is a great read!!!!
    • 4/5
      Five children play in the woods near their homes, despite their parents' warnings about danger. Tim, Sean, and Go-Go are brothers. Mickey and Gwen are the girls who join them for adventures. A terrible event occurs one summer evening in 1979, and the five kids are affected even thirty years later. Laura Lippman is a gifted writer, both in terms of story line and language. The primary message seems to be that keeping secrets works its way through the generations, resulting in dysfunctional marriages, poor life choices, misunderstandings of gargantuan proportions. It struck me, though, that this is pretty much a portrait of 21st century families in the USA, whether or not they've experienced traumatizing events as children.Lippman's characters are well-drawn, although it helped me to jot down the names and relationships of the members of the three families, since the parents also play an important role in the dynamics of this novel. The shifts from present to distant past to mid-past made it somewhat difficult to figure out who knew what when. I would have given another half-star if I hadn't had to keep referring to my notes in order to keep things straight. An absorbing read, regardless.
    • 4/5
      While I enjoyed the characters and the development of the story, I found book slightly long and drawn out. It was an interesting perspective to see how a situation in childhood can carry on throughout a person's adult life.
    • 4/5
      This is my first book by Laura Lippman. I have a few of her books but I just haven't gotten around to reading them just yet.The Most Dangerous Thing is about a group of children and their families during the 70's and 80's. The main characters are Gwen, Mickey, and the three Halloran brothers named, Sean, Tim and Gordon or also known as Go-Go. This is back in the time when parents would let their children go outside and not worry about the dangers out there. These five children would hike through Leakin Park beyond where they knew there parents wouldn't let them go if they really knew.The book goes from the present to the past in the chapters. You would be reading about any one of the main characters in the future and then they would start remembering things from the past. When you start reading The Most Dangerous Thing you read about Go-Go in the present day. He is thrown out of a bar and winds up killing himself either by accident or suicide, no one really knows. This is what begins the story of what really happened to Go-Go in the woods the day of the hurricane.I enjoyed the book and how you realize that what had happened that one day in the park altered those five children and their respective lives. They lost touch with each other, became jealous of what the other one had and how they thought each one had it better then they did.

    Book preview

    The Most Dangerous Thing - Laura Lippman

    US

    CHAPTER ONE

    Clement Robison’s house is wildly impractical for almost anyone, but especially so for an eighty-eight-year-old man living alone, even if he happens to be the one who designed it. Forty years ago, when Clem began the drawings for his dream house, he could not imagine being eighty-eight. Who can? Eighty-eight is hard to imagine even at eighty-seven. His youngest daughter, now forty-five, summoned home—or so she’s telling everyone—by her father’s accident, doesn’t really believe she’ll ever be as old as he is. Oh, she expects, hopes, to enjoy the genetic advantage of his longevity. But the number itself, eighty-eight, is like some monstrous old coat discovered in the hall closet, scratchy and smelling of mothballs. Who left this here? Is this yours? Not mine! I’ve never seen it before.

    The Robison house was modern once and people still describe it that way, although its appliances and fixtures are frozen like the clocks in a fairy tale, set circa 1985, the last remodel. A mix of milled stone, lumber and glass, it nestles into the side of the hill on a stone base, a door leading into the aboveground basement, but the family custom was to use that door only in the most inclement weather, and Clem is not one to break long-standing habits. He has continued to mount the long stone staircase, which creates the illusion that one is climbing a natural path up the hillside. The steps are charming, but there is something off about them. Too low or too high, they fool the foot, and over the years almost everyone in the family has taken a tumble or near-tumble down. Gwen’s turn came when she was thirteen, rushing outside and neglecting to consider that the sheen on the steps might be ice, not mere moisture. She traveled the entire flight on her butt, boom, boom, boom, her friends laughing at the bottom. At thirteen, the end result was a bruised coccyx and ego, nothing more.

    Her father, coming outside to get the paper on a cool but dry March morning, missed a step, tumbled almost to the street and broke his left hip.

    Do you know how many people die within a year of breaking a hip? Gwen asks her father, still in University Hospital.

    "Gwen, I taught geriatric medicine for years. I think I’m up on the facts. Most people don’t die."

    But a lot do. Almost a third.

    Still, most don’t. And I’m in good health otherwise. I just have to be disciplined about recovery and therapy.

    Miller and Fee want you to sell the house, move into assisted living.

    "That again. And you?"

    I’m holding them off. For now. I told them I would assess your situation.

    They smile at each other, coconspirators. Gwen believes herself to be her father’s favorite, although he would never say such a thing. His denials are sincere when her much older siblings, Miller and Fiona, bring up the contentious matter. I was just more available when Gwen was little, their father says. Less career obsessed. Daddy doesn’t have favorites, Gwen says. But she knows the seven-year gap between Fiona and Gwen is not enough to explain their father’s clear preference for her. There is her remarkable resemblance to their mother, dead for almost twenty-five years. And there is the bond of the house and the neighborhood, Dickeyville, which Gwen and her father love more fiercely than anyone else in the family. As a child, she used to take long walks with him in the hills behind the house, never letting on that she traveled farther and deeper into them when she was with her friends. Miller and Fee, living thousands of miles away, have been trying to get their father out of the house for years, decades, ever since their mother’s death. Gwen, who remains in Baltimore, has done whatever she can to allow her father to stay in the family home. Should the day come that he really can’t live there, it has always been their unspoken understanding that Gwen will take over the house for her own family.

    How are things at home? her father asks.

    It’s an open question, applicable to the physical status of her house and a much larger, if vaguer problem. Gwen chooses to address the physical.

    Not great. The county came out and pushed the ruins of the retaining wall back on our property, but says it’s our job to rebuild it. And even when we do, it won’t necessarily address our foundation issues. The ground could shift again.

    Why—never mind.

    Why did we buy out there when our inspector warned us of this very problem? I ask myself that every day. For me, I think it was because Relay reminded me of Dickeyville. Isolated, yet not. A little slice of country so close to the city, the idiosyncratic houses. And for Karl, it was all about convenience—the commuter train station within walking distance, BWI and Amtrak ten minutes away. Go figure—for once, my dreamy nostalgia and his pragmatism aligned and the result is utter disaster. There’s probably a lesson to be learned there.

    The lesson, her father says, is that you have a five-year-old daughter.

    Don’t worry, Gwen says, pretending not to understand. We’ve figured out how to make it work once you come home. I’m going to get up at six A.M. and drive over there, do the breakfast and getting-her-off-to-school thing. And I’ll reverse it at day’s end, be there for dinner and bedtime. But I’m going to spend the nights at your house, so we don’t have to have a nighttime aide.

    Gwen, I can easily afford—

    It’s not about affording. And it’s just for a few weeks. Anyone can tolerate anything for a few weeks. Months, years, her mind amends. It is amazing what one can tolerate, what she has tolerated. Also, it’s not the worst thing in the world, making Karl curtail his travel, to learn that he’s part of a household, not a guest star who jets in and out as it suits him.

    He is who he is, Gwen. You went into this with eyes wide open. I told you all about cardiac surgeons. And Karl was already a star. It’s not like this sneaked up on you. Not like the chicken.

    What?

    The chicken. That’s why I fell. There was a chicken on the steps, trying to peck at my ankles, and all I wanted to do was avoid stepping on it. I twisted my ankle and went over.

    Gwen tries not to show how alarming she finds this. A chicken? There haven’t been chickens in their neighborhood, ever. Except for—but those birds were far away and far in the past. No, that couldn’t be. Her father must have imagined the chicken. But if her father was imagining chickens, what else was breaking down inside his mind? She would almost prefer there was a chicken. Maybe there was. The past few years have seen a flurry of stories about animals showing up in places where they shouldn’t be—wildcats in suburbs, a deer crashing through the window of a dental practice, and, come to think of it, a chicken in one of the New York boroughs. And Dickeyville is the kind of place that has always attracted crunchy granola types. It is easy to imagine some earnest, incompetent locavore trying to raise chickens only to have them escape from his ineptly constructed coop. Gwen will ask around when she goes by the house this afternoon, to begin preparing for her father’s return.

    The Robison house is isolated, even by Dickeyville’s standards, which in turn feels cut off from much of Baltimore. It is officially the last house on Wetheredsville Road, only a few feet from where the Jersey wall now blocks the street, marking the start of a nature trail that one can follow all the way to downtown. The blocked street means Gwen can’t use the old shortcut, through what is properly called a park, but which she and her childhood friends always referred to as the woods. Their term was more accurate. Leakin Park is a forest, vast and dense, difficult to navigate. Gwen and her friends covered more of it than almost anyone, and even they missed large swaths.

    Traffic is surprisingly heavy, the journey longer than anticipated, giving the lie to her blithe words about dashing back and forth between here and the house in Relay. Still, the chance to move to Dickeyville, even temporarily, is providential. Maryland law requires a separation of at least one year to file for an uncontested divorce. She learned this during her first divorce, a sad bit of knowledge she had never planned to use again. Does anyone plan to divorce twice? Then again, after that first failed marriage, the fact is always there, incontrovertible. You’re not going to go the distance with one person, your chance at perfection is lost. For someone like Gwen, who is professionally perfect—she edits a city magazine that instructs others how to have the perfect house, children, wardrobe—this is particularly irksome.

    Yet even if she can manage to extend her time in her father’s house for a year, it won’t be enough. It is the spouse who stays who can file after one year, on the grounds of abandonment. As the spouse who is leaving, Gwen will have to wait two years if Karl doesn’t agree, and he has made it clear that he won’t, ever. She can’t spend that much time away from Annabelle, but nor can she afford her own place in their current school district. They aren’t upside down in their mortgage, but they have virtually no equity, and home equity loans are hard to get now, anyway. Karl has lots of money, but, again, he isn’t going to use it to let her leave him. And if she spends even a single night back in the Relay house, the clock resets on the separation. Maybe Annabelle will move into the Dickeyville house and they can keep this information from the school?

    But the Dickeyville house will be chaotic, once her father returns. A geriatric specialist should have designed a home that would be friendlier to old age, but his house is downright hostile to the idea. There is the first level, the stonewalled basement, with the laundry room and various systems. Then the large glass-and-timber first floor, built to take advantage of the site, but with only a powder room. Yet the top two floors, with its full baths, have narrow halls and tight corners. Their father, appalled at the spiraling costs and delays, skimped on his dream house’s bedrooms. She will have to set him up in the first-floor great room, where he will have nice views and space in which to move, if no bath. But then her father will dominate the first floor, and privacy will be found only in the cramped, dark bedrooms above. And how will he bathe? Besides, Annabelle would be lonely, as Gwen once was, and she won’t even have the freedom to roam the woods. What was considered safe in Gwen’s childhood is unthinkable for Annabelle’s.

    Her head hurts. It’s all too complicated. Dial it back, as she tells her writers when they are in over their heads on a story. Concentrate on one thing, one task. Get to the house, make sure it’s clean, do laundry, call a nursing service, let the nursing service figure out the best place for her father to convalesce.

    Once there, she finds three newspapers in yellow wrappers, several catalogs, but almost no real mail. Her father doesn’t recycle—on principle, he believes it’s a ruse, an empty, feel-good gesture—so she tosses everything, leaving only the bills on the kitchen counter. The kitchen is small, another victim of the house’s cost overruns, but her mother made it a marvel of efficiency. The light at this time of the day, year, is breathtaking, gold and rose streaks above the hill. Even with the old appliances, the yellowing Formica counters and white metal cabinets, it is a warm, welcoming room.

    Gwen goes upstairs. Everything is in order, there is no evidence of a man in decline. Widowed at sixty-three, her father quickly learned to take excellent care of himself. His closet and drawers are neater than Gwen’s, there is an admirable lack of clutter. A single page from the Times, dated the day before his fall, is on his nightstand—the Wednesday crossword puzzle, filled out in ink, without a single error. The puzzle, the tidy house, it all indicates he’s of sound mind and should back up his version of events. So why does she keep thinking of it that way, as a version? She’s still troubled about that chicken.

    Glancing out the narrow casement window toward the street, Gwen sees a black-haired man walking two dogs as black as his hair. She knows him instantly by the part in his hair, impossibly straight and perfect, visible even from this distance.

    Sean, Gwen calls out through the window. Seconds later, she is running heedlessly down the stone steps that undid her father.

    Gwennie, he says. Then: "I’m sorry. Old habits. Gwen."

    What are you doing here?

    Well—my brother, of course.

    Tim? Or Go-Go?

    Gordon, he says. Perhaps Sean has sworn off nicknames. Funny, Gwen liked hearing Gwennie, even if it always carries the reminder that she was once fat. Gwennie the Whale. She was only fat until age thirteen. They say people are forever fat inside, but Gwen’s not. Inside, she’s the sylph she became. If anything, she has trouble remembering that she’s growing older, that she can no longer rely on being the prettiest girl in the room.

    "What’s the incorrigible Go-Go—excuse me, Gordon—done now?"

    Sean looks offended, then confused. I’m sorry, I assumed you knew.

    My father fell three days ago, broke his hip. I don’t know much of anything.

    Three days ago?

    In the morning. Coming down the steps to fetch his paper.

    Three days ago—that’s when Go-Go . . . His voice catches. Sean is the middle brother, the handsomest, the smartest, the best all-around. Gwen’s mother used to say that Tim was the practice son, Sean the platonic ideal, and Go-Go a bridge too far. Gwen’s mother could be cutting in her observations, yet there was no real meanness in her. And her voice was so delicate, her manner so light, that no one took offense.

    What, Sean?

    He crashed his car into the concrete barrier where the highway ends. Probably going eighty, ninety miles per hour. We think the accelerator got stuck, or he miscalculated where it ended. I mean, we’ve all played with our speedometers up there.

    Yes, when they were teenagers, learning to drive. But Go-Go was—she calculates, subtracting four, no, five years from her age—forty, much too old to be testing his car’s power.

    He’s—

    Dead, Gwen. At the scene, instantly.

    I’m so sorry, Sean.

    Go-Go, dead. Although she has seen him periodically over the years, he remained forever eight or nine in her mind, wild and uninhibited. The risk taker in the group, although it was possible that Go-Go simply didn’t understand the concept of danger, didn’t know he was taking risks. She flashes back to an image of him on this very street, dashing across the road in pursuit of a ball, indifferent to the large truck bearing down on him, the others screaming for him to stop.

    Thank you.

    How’s your mom holding up? She remembers that Mr. Halloran died years ago, although she didn’t go to the funeral, just wrote proper notes to the boys and their mother. It was a busy time in her life, as she recalls.

    Not well. I came home for the funeral—I live in St. Petersburg now.

    Russia?

    A tight smile. Florida.

    Gwen tries not to make a face. Not because of Florida, but because the Sean she remembers would have been in Russia, a dashing foreign correspondent or diplomat. He’s still pretty dashing. Close up, she can see a few flecks of white in his hair, but the very dignity that bordered on priggish in a teenage boy suits him now. He has finally grown into his gravitas.

    I feel awful that I didn’t know. When is the funeral?

    Tomorrow. Visitation is tonight.

    Gwen calculates, even as she knows she must find a way to attend both. She will have to ask for another half day at work, make arrangements for Annabelle tonight. There is already so much to be done. But this is Go-Go—and Sean, her first boyfriend, even if she seldom thinks of him in that context. Gwen is not the kind of woman who thinks longingly of her past, who tracks down old boyfriends on the Internet. The Hallorans, along with Mickey Wyckoff, are more like the old foundations and footings they sometimes found in the woods, abandoned and overgrown, impossible to reclaim. They had been a tight-knit group of five for a summer or two, but it couldn’t be sustained. Such coed groups didn’t last long, probably. Funny, it has never occurred to Gwen until now that she and Mickey could disengage thoroughly from the group, but the Halloran brothers had to remain a set, mismatched as they were. Crass Tim, Serious Sean, Wild Go-Go.

    I’ll be there. She considers placing a hand on Sean’s forearm, but worries it will seem flirtatious. Instead, she strokes the dogs, who are old, with grizzled jowls and labored breathing, so ancient and tired that they don’t object to this long interlude in the middle of their walk. Yet old as they obviously are, they can’t be more than, what? Fifteen? Sixteen? Which is still older than her marriage to Karl.

    Mom will appreciate that, Sean says and heads back up the hill. She knows the route, knows the house at which he will arrive after going up Wetheredsville, then turning left on New Pickwick, a street of what once seemed like modern houses, small and symmetrical relative to the shambling antiquities for which Dickeyville was known, following it to the shortest street in the neighborhood, Sekots, just four houses. The Halloran house always smelled of strong foods—onions, cabbage, hamburger—and it was always a mess. Sometimes the chaos could be comforting; no child need worry about disturbing or breaking anything in such a household. It could be terrifying, too, though, a place where the adults yelled horrible things at one another and Mrs. Halloran was often heard sobbing, off in the distance. The boys never seemed to notice, and even Mickey was nonchalant about it. But the Halloran house scared Gwen, and she made sure their activities centered on her house or the woods beyond.

    Go-Go, dead. The only surprise was that she was surprised at all.

    Most thought he was called Go-Go because it was a bastardization of Gordon, but it really derived from his manic nature, evident from toddlerhood, his insistence on following his brothers wherever they went. I go-go, he would say, as if the second syllable, the repetition, would clinch the argument. I go-go. And he did. He ran into walls, splashed into the polluted waters of the stream, jumped from branches and balconies. Once Go-Go spent much of an afternoon running head-on into an old mattress they had found in the woods, laughing all the while.

    Now he has run head-on into the barrier at the end of the highway. Gwen can’t help wondering if he was drunk. Although she hasn’t seen the Halloran boys for years, she knows, the way that everyone knows things in Dickeyville, that Go-Go has a problem. It is implied, if never stated outright, in the lost jobs, the broken first marriage, the rocky second one, the fact that he returns to the roost for open-ended stays.

    Then again, who is she to judge Go-Go? Isn’t she pulling the same trick, running home, a two-time loser in matrimony, taking comfort in a parent’s unconditional love? Mr. Halloran may have been hard as nails, but Mrs. Halloran, when she wasn’t screaming at her sons and wondering why they had been born, spoiled them to the best of her ability, especially Go-Go. And while most people will assume Gwen is nothing more than a devoted daughter, some will see through her. Her brother and sister, certainly. And Karl.

    That is, Karl would see through her if it ever occurred to him to look, really look at her. But if Karl looked at her that way, they wouldn’t be in this fix. At least that’s how she likes to see it.

    Summer 1976

    CHAPTER TWO

    I hate it here, Fee said. It’s boring.

    There’s no place to go, Miller said. There’s nothing to do.

    Only boring people are bored, their father said.

    Or maybe only boring people don’t realize how bored they are, Fee said. They are so boring that it never occurs to them to do anything.

    Gwen likes it here, their father said.

    "Well, Gwen. Fee sniffed. She’s a child."

    Of course I’m a child, Gwen said mildly. I’m ten.

    The thing is, Miller pressed on, intent on making his case, there are plenty of kids for Gwen to play with—that Mickey girl, those brothers—

    We do NOT play with the Halloran boys. They’re too wild, Gwen put in.

    Gwen spoke the truth, at the time. In the summer of our nation’s bicentennial, the five of us were not friends yet and the Hallorans were considered wild. We were two and three—the two girls, Gwen and Mickey, the three brothers, Tim, Sean, and Go-Go. We would not come together as a group until the following spring. But we were all aware of each other. Mickey was a familiar little figure in Dickeyville, a terrifying tomboy assumed to be a loner by choice, a child who wanted to be outdoors no matter how fierce the weather. The Halloran boys were known as hellions, primarily because of Go-Go. Besides, in the summer, they went down to the ocean, then to camp.

    And Gwen’s family, the Robisons, were famous in Dickeyville because they had been trying to build their new house for almost seven years, stopped twice by injunction because of the neighborhood’s historic status. Strangely, Dr. Robison did not resent the neighborhood’s resistance to his house. This was his dream house and he would suffer anything to get it. He had bought the lot a decade earlier, around the time Gwen was born, after stumbling across Dickeyville while trying to get to the Forest Park golf course. First he had been told that the lot wasn’t suitable for building, that its pitch would make it impossible. He refused to accept this and finally found an architect who said it could be done, although at great expense. Then the neighborhood had decided to fight it, although Dickeyville had its share of postwar nondescript houses. The Hallorans lived in one, in fact, but did not feel themselves hypocrites for joining the opposition. The Robison house—new, modern—signified something, even if no one was quite sure what. Change, hypocrisy, a challenge to traditional values. Yet nine years after the lot was purchased, five years after ground was broken, the house had asserted itself into being, through the sheer force of Dr. Robison’s will.

    This apparently came as something of a surprise to Mrs. Robison and the two older children, twenty-year-old Miller and seventeen-year-old Fee. And although Miller had to endure only summers there, and although Fee had only a year of high school left and she was continuing at Park, the same private school Gwennie attended, they were bitter. Mrs. Robison was not bitter, not exactly, but we all sensed something in her attitude. How to put it? There was a quality of withholding. In her beautiful, hippieish clothes, she moved through the world with her head down and arms crossed, as if to say to Dickeyville: I will not love you, I will not. Inevitably, all the fathers and even some of their sons were a little bit in love with Tally Robison, mistaking her coolness to her surroundings as a coolness toward them, which never fails to provoke a man. Gwen never doubted her mother’s love, however, which was mildly infuriating to the rest of us, who sometimes wondered if our mothers were altogether pleased by our existence. Mickey’s mom, the boys’ mom—they tended toward moments of frustration. Doris Halloran, in particular, had a way of asking Why were you born? as if she didn’t really know, or as if she was debating the church’s doctrine on abortion. Not that abortion was legal even when the youngest of the Halloran boys, Go-Go, was conceived. But we still had the impression that Mrs. Halloran would have appreciated having a choice.

    But we didn’t care what the grown-ups thought, or even Gwennie’s older brother and sister, impressive as they were, with their driver’s licenses and studied indifference to us. In our imaginations, we lived in a world without grown-ups most of the day. We all had the same rules, more or less. Don’t ride your bikes on Forest Park Avenue (busy, blind curves), be on time for dinner, and stay out of the creek. We found a way around the first rule, had no problem with the second, and figured the third didn’t matter if our tetanus shots were current. We never went into the creek on purpose, but we ended up in it a lot by accident.

    Gwen and Mickey met by the creek that bicentennial summer. Mickey was lying belly-down on the bank, near a culvert where crawfish were sometimes found, poking the murky water with a long stick.

    I’m Gwen, Gwen said shyly to the wiry little back and frowsy black hair.

    You live in that big house, at the end of the road. Are your parents rich? Mickey replied, eyes fixed on the brown water.

    I don’t think so. Gwen considered the evidence. Their house was grand, at least on the lower floors. The bedrooms felt a little stingy. Fee and Miller had a car, but they had to share it, and it was an old Volvo. Her parents went to New York once a year to go to the theater and shop for Christmas gifts. Did this make them rich?

    What does your father do?

    He’s a doctor.

    So you’re rich, Mickey said, eyes never leaving the water. Did crawfish really live there? Gwen could not imagine it. But Mickey insisted they were there and that, furthermore, she was going to take them home and eat them. If she caught any. She had a net at the ready, but it didn’t look up to the job. It was tiny, the kind of thing used in tropical aquariums. Even one small crawfish would test its capacity.

    He’s the kind of doctor who teaches.

    My dad owns the service station, up the hill. Well, he’s not really my dad, but my stepdad. He’s good-looking. He looks like Tom Selleck.

    That’s cool. Him owning the service station.

    No, it’s not. Because when I want a soda or a snowball or something from the pharmacy next door, I can’t go there because someone from the station will rat me out. And there’s nowhere else to go. There used to be a store here in the neighborhood, where they sold penny candy, but they stopped. Do you have treats at your house?

    What?

    Treats. Ice cream and cookies and candy and soda? I suppose not, your father being a doctor.

    Oh, no, we have—treats. My mother goes grocery shopping once a week, and each one can choose whatever snacks we want. But that’s it, for the week. If you eat it all up right away, you have to wait until the next week. Gwen did not add that she had learned all sorts of ways of making treats last. She nibbled 5th Avenue candy bars, plucking off the solitary almond, then slowly removing the chocolate with teeth and tongue, leaving behind an unsheathed bar of peanut butter. She ate peanut M&M’s by cracking the chocolate shell, removing the peanuts, then placing the peanuts in a bowl, to be gobbled in a handful. She was proud of these maneuvers but aware that others considered them gross. Besides, she was pudgy and desperate to pretend candy was not particularly interesting to her, that her condition was glandular.

    Mickey sat up. Would you get circus peanuts sometimes?

    Peanuts?

    Circus peanuts. The big fluffy ones. Kind of like Peeps, only not so sticky.

    Sure.

    The next Friday, on her mother’s weekly shopping trip, Gwen put a bag of the orange peanuts into the cart. Really? her mother asked. You hate marshmallow. Gwen nodded. The next day, she took the treats to Mickey. Over the course of the summer, she brought Mickey Smarties, candy buttons, Pixy Stixs. Necco Wafers. Now and Laters. Gwen’s mother figured it out within a week or so, but she didn’t care. In fact, she complimented Gwen on her selflessness. But it didn’t feel selfless to Gwen, more like a necessary tribute. Mickey was valuable. Mickey knew things. You couldn’t have access to all she knew without making some sort of contribution.

    Mickey had been roaming the wooded hills around Dickeyville since the age of eight, when she persuaded her mother to let her walk home from the public elementary school on the other side of the hill. She acted as if she owned every inch of it, and we didn’t contradict her. We never got lost when we let Mickey lead the way, while the rest of us could get turned around quite easily.

    Yet Mickey was the only one of us who didn’t live in Dickeyville. Her family lived above it, in the town houses called Purnell Village, on the other side of Forest Park Avenue. Most children would not have been allowed to cross that street, much less walk to school alone, but Mickey had permission. Or said she did. Mickey was not always the most reliable person when it came to herself. Her stepfather, for example, was not her stepfather and did not own the gas station. He managed it. He did, however, look a little like Tom Selleck.

    Caught in a lie or a contradiction by the rest of us, Mickey would shrug, as if the misstatements that flowed from her were incidental, a slip of the tongue, like mixing up facts you knew perfectly well. And because Mickey was beautiful, despite her wild bush of hair and grubby clothes, we came to believe that was one of the perks of beauty, the freedom to lie and not be called on it. Who wanted to fight with someone as pretty as Mickey? She was prettier still for not being able to do much about her appearance. She wore jeans and T-shirts, often the same ones two days running, and her hair was never quite brushed. Sometimes, Gwen’s mother would say, Let’s play beauty parlor, and Gwen understood it was an excuse to pull a brush through Mickey’s matted hair, which would shine and gleam under her mother’s care. Later, when we became

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