She can almost picture Kevin reading Roberts Rules of Order in kindergarten, and Kitty knee deep in Reagan biographies and foreign policy. Sarah was probably given a set of books on entrepreneurialism and capitalism. Even Justin seems to have been subjected to it, as the only books on his shelves are encyclopedias that Rebecca would lay good money have been passed down through the entire family.

Sometimes she thinks they just can't be real. Real people aren't like this, don't read these things. They just have them out on their coffee tables during parties so they look well-read and well-educated. No one actually dog-ears them and highlights relevant passages for fun. They're like constructs of all that people are supposed to be, except they're also so screwed up that they have to be real.

She's not sure how that works, how it all comes together. How does the person who, according to Justin, has the Stanford Law Library on his list of favorite places actually sit next to you at dinner and yank out your hair? How do people who own an actual set of the Confederate Papers as well as a first edition of the works of Jonathan Swift shout at people they don't like and barely know on game night.

How did they not actually know Juliet's last name?

She grabs a book - Rush Limbaugh, really, Kitty? - and sits on the edge of Kitty's bed, leafing through the pages. She doesn't read the book, there's really no point. Even with every viewpoint on the political spectrum represented in this family, she's pretty sure she'll never agree with any of them on anything, so it's really just something to do with her hands, something to act like she belongs here. Not in this room, it's very clearly Kitty's, but in this place, in this family.

Her bookcase is haphazard and stuffed, filled with mementos that don't really mean anything and maybe never did, papers and college books, art supplies and stuffed animals. It's a kid's bookcase, but she's not sure how to take it over and make it her own. She's not sure who she is or what her books should say about her. There are books she reads again and again, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Little Princess, and then others that fill her time without filling anything else - chick lit and mysteries and true crime. They're paperbacks that look abused and beaten, airport novels and things she's shoved in her book bag and backpack when on the run.

These are books that stay, books that build the walls up to something that makes a statement. Books that are alphabetized and organized - author, publisher, subject. The Walkers keep their books like libraries, catalogued and sorted. She wonders what would happen if she went over and pulled them all down, put them back together by color or second letter of the title or by size. Wonders what would happen if she tore them down and messed everything up, destroyed their libraries like she's destroyed their lives.

She gets up and puts the book back on the shelf, carefully pushing it in so everything lines up perfectly, edges straight and spines together. She traces her fingers over them, rubbing the sleek dust jackets and frowning. Maybe she could just change all those around so everything's the same, where it should be, but wrong. She thinks that's what she's done for them already, actually, because they keep going on with their lives, keep moving forward, and she's on the periphery, but not really there. She's like the child of a divorce, there on the weekends and for special occasions, but everything else belongs to the new family now.

Of course, she is the new family, or would be, if William had done what he was supposed to. If he'd done what happens in all the movies and books, where the little girl lost gets found. Not that leaving this behind is a happy ending, but then she's not sure she's ever believed in those, even when she wanted to.

She finds another book and pulls it out, frowning at Anne Coulter and pushes it back in. Kitty's books are like Kevin's, like Sarah's, like Tommy's, like Justin's. They're what they believe in and what they live by, but not who they are. You can't really tell that Kitty hates that one day she got it wrong, or that Tommy feels guilty that he was so hard on Kevin when he came out, or that Sarah worries every day that she's doing it all wrong, or that Kevin is afraid of being alone, or that Justin is afraid of everything. They don't tell you that Nora eats bon-bons at night in bed and curses at William under her breath when she thinks no one's around or listening. They don't tell her anything about the man who was her father.

Her books reveal her, reveal more than she probably knows. They say that she's alone and lonely, that she wants a father and a family, that she believed in fairy tales once, and maybe not anymore. They show that she thinks she's easily discarded, that she's as trashy as the novels that she reads. Leaning against the bookcase, she stares out into the hallway at the closed doors that used to be bedrooms and used to hold who these people were between their walls. They're all redone now, modeled into perfect guest rooms, just like the Walkers on the surface. Perfect and aligned, edges straight and surface polished when really they're like closets when company is coming over, stuffed full of dirty laundry and mismatched shoes, papers and secrets and childhoods that they haven't quite outgrown.

Rebecca sighs softly and leaves the room, trailing her hand over each door as she goes, knowing which belonged to whom thanks to Justin and stories told and corrected around the table. Rebecca reads novels fast and furious, inhaling them like fast food, digesting them in wolfish bites of words and ideas. She's learning their stories, who they are and what tales they have to tell. She almost smiles as she makes her way down the stairs, content in the knowledge that, whatever else they think they are, the Walkers lives are nothing they'd find in their own libraries, and everything they'd find in hers.