Ten years in a foreign clinic under a stolen name had not touched the part of her that noticed the color of ink, the part that knew her own father’s hand, the part that had been quietly keeping its own books all along, exactly as I had.

The flight leaves from Portela at noon tomorrow, I said.

Karina has the ticket waiting at the desk.

“I am ready to come home, Clara,” she said.

“And face them.” The line went dead before I could reply, and I hid the plastic phone under the floorboard beneath the wardrobe, beside the brass key.

I want to be clear about who did what, because it matters more than anything else in this account.

I did not rescue Rowena Duncan.