Clara thrusts her head under the pillow and clamps her arm around it, trying and failing to blot out Scout’s distant barking. It punctures the pre-dawn silence like a shotgun. Scout only barks like this when something or someone is on the farm that shouldn’t be— dumped tires, a wounded deer, an intruder.

A masked man, wielding a shining knife, elbows his way into her woozy half-slumber, and her heart accelerates.

She shakes away the image. There hasn’t been a single burglary in their rural Pennsylvania township since they moved from the city seven years ago. Fatigue sinks her back into sleep.

But Scout keeps barking.

Clara peeks from under the pillow at the window. A purple band of morning light leaks into the room through an inch-wide opening above the sill, where the blinds fail to meet the ledge. Ash must have left the back door unlatched when he came in from the studio last night. He’s been painting late every night this week.

“The dog.” Clara gently shoves her husband, but he doesn’t move; his steady breathing continues undisturbed.

Scout keeps barking.

“Mamma,” Willa whispers from the bedroom doorway.

Through half-closed eyes, Clara sees her daughter hovering like a ghost. Her white cotton nightgown, with frayed lace at the collar and hem, hangs off her skinny body like a rag. Blue light from the hall window illuminates her bony elbows and knees.

Maybe she’s dreaming. Maybe Willa is really tucked up in bed where she should be.

“Mamma,” Willa says again, her voice louder. “Scout’s barking. Outside.”

No such luck. Clara raises herself on her forearm. She can’t see her daughter’s dark, almond-shaped eyes, but she can feel the intensity of her stare in the dark. Willa is their great, untamed beauty. A mustang, Clara once called her—and ever since, skittery horses with flying manes in blue and purple have been turning up in Ash’s paintings.

Something is wrong. Clara pushes back the duvet. “I’ll get him, sweetie,” she says.

She reaches out and grabs her husband’s jeans from the floor, pulling them on and folding the waistband over. Then she retrieves Ash’s old, pilling cashmere sweater from the floor. She spent half her paycheck on it, a million Christmases ago—their second Christmas together, after she’d moved into his Tribeca loft, when they were city people. Now she lives a bifurcated life: city person by day (Philadelphia, not New York), country person by night. Like some kind of vampire. Or like a mama bird foraging far from the nest to feed her babies. She pushes up the sweater’s sleeves, and it releases a comforting scent of coffee and turpentine.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” she says, reaching out to reassure Willa.

But her daughter shrinks away, plastering herself against the hall wall. Clara’s hand hangs in the air; she’s stung anew by Willa’s need for physical boundaries. Why isn’t Willa more like the twins, who burrow their blond heads into Clara’s chest looking for hugs? They like her touch—crave it, demand it even, sometimes to the point of exhaustion.

“Go back to bed,” Clara coaxes.

Willa only sucks on the tips of her hair and stares silently. And seeing the anxiety in those narrow brown eyes, Clara feels a flood of sympathy replacing her irritation.

She pads down the farmhouse’s worn stairs, hoping that the squeaking from the old planks doesn’t wake the twins. Scout’s barks are unrelenting. Has he cornered a bear again? He was lucky once, but might not be twice. A shaggy black terrier mix, he’s scarcely twenty pounds, but he’s tenacious—a quality she values when hiring reporters but finds inconvenient in a pet.

She brushes past her bulky briefcase, waiting at the bottom of the stairs for her long commute to Philly. At the same moment, Scout’s barks morph into howls. Clara hurries through the screen door—unlatched, as she suspected. Outside, she can’t see Scout, but she can hear him from somewhere at the end of their pebbled driveway.

She crosses the lawn, and the dew from the grass squishes between her toes. Across the far field, in the haze of the morning, she catches sight of the small red circles of a departing car’s tail-lights. They’re like eyes—opossum eyes—withdrawing into the darkness at her approach.

When she rounds the forsythia bush, she spots Scout, a fuzzy black cloud hopping around a mound. Clara calls to him, and the dog races up the drive and circles her twice. She extends a hand to him, but he swerves out of reach and races back down the driveway, barking with the same urgency as before.

Clara glances at the house. Willa is at the upstairs bathroom window, forehead pressed against the glass, face distorted. Clara waves, but her daughter remains still, staring into the distance. Clara feels a chill. What does Willa see?

Scout is rapidly circling the large dark heap. It’s probably something dumped from that disappearing car. All kinds of things have been abandoned in their driveway—old chairs, a case of nutrition shakes past their expiration date, even a pot-bellied pig. People think a farm will absorb anything. The lump isn’t moving. Clara squints and detects a pattern. Leopard fur? That’s ludicrous—there are no leopards in Pennsylvania. As she gets closer, she realizes that the leopard pattern is a skirt, and that the lump has limbs. And a mass of curly, red hair. Hair she recognizes.

Fear hollows her chest, roots her to the ground, rolls up the back of her parched throat until it’s roaring in her ears. Then her feet start moving. “Justine!” she shrieks.

She drops to her knees before her sister. Scout stops barking and skitters back a few yards. Clara yanks on Justine’s shoulder, rolling her over. Her sister’s eyes stay shut. She shakes Justine violently, but there’s no response. “Wake up!” Clara’s fine hair flies into her face as she pulls on her sister’s body. Justine is heavy and motionless. Please be alive, please be alive. Finally she thinks to stick a finger under her sister’s nose. A flutter of air tickles her skin, and Clara exhales the breath she’s been holding, tears springing to her eyes.

Justine moans, and a cloud of alcohol assaults Clara and sets her coughing. The fumes are so intense, Clara’s sure she’d fail a breathalyzer from inhaling them. Anger quickly joins her relief. “Wake up, damn it!”

Justine’s eyes flicker, then roll back. A strangled, rasping whimper escapes her mouth, followed by choking. Panic gives Clara an extra burst of strength, and she pulls her sister to her feet. Justine’s head wobbles and falls forward. Clara catches her sister’s bulky frame and braces herself against Justine’s weight. Greenish sludge slides from Justine’s mouth to the driveway, splattering the bottom of Clara’s—Ash’s—jeans. Alcohol fumes roll up in waves from the vomit, along with another unrecognizable smell. Clara stumbles, cursing the fact that she doesn’t have her phone: it’s seeming increasingly likely that she’ll need to call an ambulance.

Clara pulls up the lacy sleeve of Justine’s shirt. The skin on her powder-white arm is broken by the cursive black letters of her song-lyric tattoo. The shattered parts are the places where your love starts. Clara closes her eyes and says a silent thanks, though the smooth skin is not definitive proof that her sister is drug-free.

“Bad night,” Justine slurs, as more green muck falls from her mouth. Scout advances, his nose quivering at the toxic puddle.

“Go!” Clara snaps at him. She reaches around Justine’s waist and grabs the soft flesh bulging over the top of the tight skirt. Her sister’s perfume cuts through the stench of vomit, and Clara can’t decide which is worse. Justine always insists on wearing Chanel No. 5, their mother’s scent. Clara tamps down the nightmare image that bursts into her mind every time she smells it.

“You’ve got to make it into the house,” she says. Justine slumps against her, and Clara staggers before recovering her footing.

No one ever guesses that they’re sisters. Clara is slim, boyish, and nerdy, with glasses and bone-straight hair chopped at her jaw. Justine, six inches taller, is an earth-goddess: full-bodied, with hair that refuses to be tamed. Even the one thing they share—their green eyes—are dramatically different. Justine’s are large, a striking pale sea-green; they’re the one feature Clara has always envied, since hers are small and deep-set, easily overlooked, even if Ash once compared them to smoky emeralds.

Justine rouses herself and throws an arm around her sister’s shoulder. “Sorry, sorry,” she says. She waves a hand as if apologizing to the fields, the trees in the distance, the sky—anything rather than Clara. Then she steps forward in her chunky heels, and her knees wobble and buckle, threatening to take Clara down with her.

“I can’t—” Clara says. But Justine has closed her eyes again.

Scout cocks his head, sympathy apparent in the lift of his ears.

“I can’t keep doing this,” Clara tells him. She looks up and sees Willa, still at the window. Clara waves to indicate that everything is okay, but her daughter’s face withdraws, and the lacy white curtain falls into place.

In the kitchen, Clara eases Justine onto the sagging sofa and tucks a mohair blanket around her. Scout turns a circle on his faux sheepskin bed and watches the newcomer.

“Don’t say anything yet.” Justine holds up a hand. “Things are still spinning.”

The automatic coffee maker has kicked on and is huffing and wheezing as it fills the carafe. Clara pours the coffee into an oversized ceramic cup—Justine made it back when she thought pottery might be her artistic medium—and sets it on the low table in front of the sofa, as Justine digs a cigarette from her purse and clamps it between her lips.

She’s not supposed to smoke in the house, but Clara doesn’t have the energy for another fight. Maybe a cigarette will help Justine pull herself together, the way it used to do for their mother. Clara puts a jam jar on the table. “Put it out when the kids come down,” she says through gritted teeth.

“I’m quitting, I swear.”

“Right. So what happened?”

“I had too much fun last night. Siggy drove me home.” Justine says this as if it were a reasonable explanation. Her fingers fumble on the little wheel of the lighter as she fails to strike the flame. Clara resists the temptation to help her light the cigarette. A moment later the flame flares, and the cigarette’s tip burns orange as her sister sucks in the poison, her eyes half-closed with pleasure. Justine leans back and exhales.

The sharp smell of tobacco swirls around Clara’s face. She takes a step back, her worry shifting into anger. “And Siggy dumped you in the road like a bag of garbage?”

“He didn’t dump me. We got into a fight, and I told him to let me out at the end of the driveway.”

Clara shakes her head. Why is Justine defending Siggy? She complains about him constantly; only yesterday swore she was going to break up with him. “He must have known what state you were in.”

Justine takes another long drag, then kneads her temples with her fingers. “Do we have to do this now?”

Clara bends to pick up a bobby pin from the floor—it must have fallen from her sister’s hair—and the tangy smell of vomit catches her attention; spatters of it fleck the cuffs of her jeans. She heads to the sink and dabs at the flecks of orange with a wet paper towel.

Golden sunlight is chasing away the shadows cast over the barn; the kids will be up soon. Clara yanks a box of pancake mix from the cupboard. She’s never been able to talk sense into her sister, so why does she keep trying? Whisking together the ingredients, she considers the day ahead: how long before the twins wake, how long breakfast will last, how long her shower can be, how long the morning traffic will take, how late she’ll be to her 9 a.m. meeting with Sasha, the “star reporter” who’s causing bad social dynamics in the newsroom.

Suddenly the cigarette smoke filling her kitchen is unbearable. “Put it out,” she snaps.

Justine has sprawled out on the couch. Her eyes are closed, and the lit cigarette dangles from her mouth. Clara snatches it from her sister’s lips. She stubs it out in the jam lid so hard that the paper bursts and the tobacco scatters.

When they were younger, Clara excused her sister’s behavior as simply a result of grief. Justine was only sixteen when their parents died. But she’s no longer a teenager, or even in her twenties. Clara considers shaking her awake, then relents. Everything will be easier if Justine sleeps. Instead Clara eases her further down on the sofa and pulls the blanket around her. Justine responds with something between a sigh of pleasure and a groan.

At the stove, Clara pours the pancake batter into the hot pan, and the grease crackles and pops. A stray drop burns her wrist, leaving a red spot, a tribal mark of domesticity. Cooking is a chore, but pancakes are different; making pancakes connects her to her mother, who made them for her and Justine every Sunday morning.

When they’re plated and on the table, Clara casts an eye at Justine, who looks younger asleep, and her anger eases as it always does. She pours a generous amount of syrup on each stack of pancakes and calls the children down.

A moment later Willa slips into the room, reading a book while she walks. She’s dressed for school in an oversized striped sweater and leggings. Her blond hair is pulled back into an unbrushed ponytail, an eleven-year-old who mercifully hasn’t entered tweendom. Clara sets a plate of pancakes in front of her. As Willa moves her book aside, she shoots a look at her aunt. Then she quickly returns her focus to the dog-eared novel, which she presses open with one hand while she stabs at her pancakes with her other.

“Auntie Justine is going to be okay,” Clara tells her.

“I know,” Willa says, which perversely makes Clara want to assert the opposite. She’s not sure that Justine will be okay, really, ever.

“She had a late night.”

Clara forces a smile, but Willa doesn’t glance up from her book, which features a selkie—half seal, half girl—reclining on rocks covered by rough waves, on the cover. When Willa was younger, Clara read her daughter’s books along with her, but now Willa reads so many, so quickly, that Clara no longer tries to keep up.

Jasper and Paloma stomp down the stairs. They shriek in delight when they see the pancakes. Paloma pirouettes across the kitchen, as she does dozens of times a day, then stops when she notices the lump on the couch. She elbows Jasper, interrupting his beeline to the pancakes. “Look,” she stage-whispers. Jasper follows her pointing finger, and his eyes grow round.

“Auntie Justine is feeling sick, but she’ll be okay.” Clara makes her voice bright. The twins, at seven, are still easily distracted. She hands them each a plate of pancakes, and they race each other to the table, their passed-out aunt forgotten. They squabble congenially over the syrup, and Clara is filled with relief that they’re not asking any questions.

Ash’s heavy footfall on the wooden stairs announces his arrival before he ducks his head under the low lintel to enter the kitchen. This is the original part of their farmhouse, more than a hundred and fifty years old, and it wasn’t built for men over six feet.

Ash sees Clara in his cashmere sweater and says, “Mine,” then kisses the top of her head.

“Daddy!” Jasper shouts. Paloma bursts out of her chair, hugging Ash around the legs.

Ash laughs and strokes her spiky blond hair. As Clara hands him a mug of coffee, he takes in Justine’s rumpled heap on the sofa and raises a discreet eyebrow.

“Siggy,” she mouths, though it’s only half the story.

He raises his eyes heavenward before gently extricating himself from Paloma’s embrace. He seems remarkably chipper after his late night.

“Time to catch the bus,” Clara announces.

Willa grabs her lunch box from the counter and her backpack from the mudroom, then glides out the door, the book still open in one hand. Jasper and Paloma race out behind her. Clara puts on her old boots and trails after them with her coffee. The bus is rolling up the drive, and the kids turn to wave before being swallowed by it.

Clara exhales. She turns toward her husband, who has followed her outside, and folds her body into his. Ash’s grizzly stubble is sharp against her forehead. He wraps his arms around her. After a moment she says into his t-shirt, “I thought Justine was dead. She passed out at the bottom of the driveway.” Saying it aloud makes her realize how deeply shaken she was. She pushes her head harder into Ash’s chest.

He squeezes her more closely. “I wish she’d leave that asshole for good.”

“Even if she does, it won’t change anything.” Clara chokes on the last word. Justine is never going to change.

Ash strokes her hair. “You’re so good to her.”

This is what everybody says, what everybody’s always said, but what choice does she have? Justine is her sister, her only living blood relative except for the children.

Remembering Willa’s face at the bathroom window, she raises her head to look at Ash. “Willa was looking out—she saw it all.”

“She’ll be fine.” Ash squeezes her. “Kids are tough.”

They move, arm in arm, toward the house. “We need someone else,” Clara announces. “Someone to watch the kids who doesn’t secretly—or not so secretly—smoke. Who doesn’t swear and tell inappropriate stories about sneaking out in the middle of the night to steal cars.”

“But that’s why they love her.”

Clara hates the affection in her husband’s voice as he talks about her sister.

“Anyway, those stories aren’t about being bad. They’re poetic, romantic. She stole the car so she could drive to the beach and watch the sun rise over the sea, when she and Salvatore were separated by the whole Atlantic Ocean.”

“She stole a car, Ash.” Clara shakes her head. How is that not clearly wrong to him?

Ash laughs. “If she’d taken a bus, it wouldn’t have been nearly as compelling.”

“I was ready this morning to tell her that she had to go.” Clara looks into his dark eyes, searching for an ally.

But Ash shakes his head. “She’s family. And she’s generous and creative, and totally fucking irresponsible.”

“She needs help. More than we can give her.”

“What more could anyone do? She won’t go to rehab. We’re giving her a roof over her head until she’s back on her feet.”

The roof. Clara looks toward their home with dismay. When she first saw it, she fell instantly in love with its classic beauty. The white clapboard front, almost severe in its plainness, reminds her of an Andrew Wyeth painting. But as she surveys the house now, Clara tallies up the places where it needs work: peeling paint, rotting exterior windowsills, sagging gutters. The decades-old, patched roof alone will cost them twenty-five thousand to replace.

“Hey.” Ash grabs her in a crushing hug. “I love you.” His deep, gravelly voice vibrates in her bones.

“Me too.” She squeezes him back and closes her eyes, willing away all other thoughts.

The first time he said it, six months into their relationship, she burst into tears and couldn’t stop crying. It had been three years since her parents’ death, three years since anyone told her they loved her. He swore then that he’d tell her so often, she’d grow sick of hearing it. She never has.

“Back to work now.”  He slides away from her and heads toward the barn, humming as he goes.

As she turns to the house, a white flutter from the bathroom window catches her eye. She sees an image of ghostly Willa, her distorted forehead pressed to the glass, and is seized with panic; she’s certain Willa’s upstairs, even though she saw her get on the school bus. Then she blinks and squints, and there’s no one. The window is open a couple of inches, and the lacy curtain waves in the morning breeze.

A child of the ’80s, I grew up with the TV perfume jingle “She can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never let him forget he’s a man.” My sister and I swallowed the commercial’s women-can-do-it-all message whole, along with other, similar refrains from the time, like the feminist anthem by Aretha Franklin, “Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves.” Years later, as I balanced a career in journalism with my home life and tried to squeeze in my personal writing projects, I experienced firsthand the obstacles women face to “doing it all.” The themes of sisterhood, ambition, artistic striving, and responsibility all fueled my writing and led me to gather together the characters in this novel.

It opens with Clara, editor-in-chief of a small but mighty Philadelphia newspaper, finding her younger sister passed out in her driveway, again. Orphaned at twenty-three and sixteen when their parents died in a plane crash, the sisters play out a familiar dynamic: Clara has been mothering Justine for more than a decade. She’s finally had enough of her sister’s dangerous recklessness, though, and now she’s ready to kick her out of her house and life. But Justine, who spends nights singing in dive bars and afternoons nannying her sister’s children, is beloved by Clara’s three kids for her magical, whimsical touch, something that hardworking Clara is too busy to provide.

Clara’s husband, Ash, a former New York art star struggling to understand his murky Mexican patrimony through his painting, also relies on Justine’s presence. Her nannying allows him more time to work on his upcoming solo show, which he believes will spark his comeback in the art world. He also cherishes family ties and convinces Clara not to kick out her sister, reminding her that Justine has nowhere else to go.

The novel’s title refers to Pennsylvania Dutch hex signs—colorful, circular barn paintings meant to bring good luck or ward off evil. Ash paints them in his own style, and he and Clara’s family need that protection.

While Justine’s drunken mishaps escalate, Clara’s star reporter at the newspaper uncovers a money-laundering art scam that implicates Ash. He is oblivious of the illegal machinations afoot but still stands to gain from them. Caught between dueling loyalties and responsibilities in both her work and her family, Clara must act before everything spirals toward catastrophe. Ultimately, art serves as a means for her and her family to rebuild and reconnect with one another.