Excerpt from Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I loved to police the people in line at Chuck's salad bar, observing how well they adhered to the honor system. When it was my turn, I'd make a show of using the correct tongs to take my fair share from each container, while Ollie would plunge the same tongs into every container, heaping coleslaw on her plate, then olives, and a stockpile of croutons on top. It wasn't a crime, but it stood for everything I couldn't stand about her.

The waiter took our order, and my father debriefed me. He said Ollie would stay in the hospital overnight; they had given her some strong stuff for the pain. A plastic surgeon had been called in to assess the damage. Her back was the worst, he said, but the scarring would be minimal. Not a single shard of glass had touched her face.

"You're a very pretty girl," the surgeon said. "You're lucky."

When Ollie came home the next day, she let me apply Neosporin on the deeper cuts on her back. I carefully traced each one with a worm of ointment. "Can't you speed it up?" I was too slow and methodical for Ollie. Even woozy on pain medication, she couldn't stand waiting for anything.

By the time my mother returned five days later, my father had had the window reglazed and the carpet and couch professionally cleaned. Dad said it looked as good as new. I thought Mom would detect the damage right away, but she was full of bluster and in a generous mood, having won the tournament. She showed off her first-place trophy and handed out presents from the ship's gift shop. A baseball cap that said "Fjords" for my father and a T-shirt for me that said "I HEART FJORDS." The bag appeared to be empty, but then she fished out a polar bear carved from white quartz, small enough to fit in your hand, and gave it to Ollie for her collection of souvenir bears.

The tradition had started before I was born. From the moment Ollie saw them, she fell in love with the bears at the Bronx zoo. She was delighted by the creatures swimming, nosing a big red ball into the air, basking in the sun. She refused to leave the exhibit and my parents could not cajole, bribe, or budge her. The story goes that they stayed watching the bears until the zoo closed. At three, Ollie already knew how to exert her power, and my parents, beguiled by their little girl, acquiesced. "Strong-willed," "headstrong," and "stubborn" didn't attach themselves to Olivia until later.

Eventually, my mother put the pieces together from the evidence: the banged-up vacuum, the bloody gauze in Ollie's wastebasket, the bill from the hospital mixed in with the day's mail. My father downplayed the whole thing, said it was nothing. Years later, after Ollie stopped coming home, he said he blamed himself, he shouldn't have tried to hide the accident from our mother. Even then, long before Ollie was in real trouble, she was often out of control, playing too hard, not knowing when to quit. The surgeon had said that Ollie was more than lucky; if a single shard had lodged too deeply in her neck, she could have died.

After the meal, Dad ordered dessert, a piece of Chuck's famous mud cake, with two forks. The waiter set the cake down and winked, "Enjoy, you two lovebirds." My father lifted a bite to his mouth, but then his body started to shudder. I looked away, afraid of what might happen next; I had never seen my father cry. After a few moments, he shook it off, wiped his face with his handkerchief and apologized for breaking down. It had been a long day. "Is Ollie going to be punished?" I asked. A mix of disbelief and disgust crossed his face, "Is that what's on your mind?" Suddenly I was to blame; the girl who sailed through glass remained unscathed—Houdini had escaped without a scratch. My father sank his fork into the cake.

Excerpted from Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner. Copyright © 2024 by Betsy Lerner. Excerpted by permission of Grove Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.