“Did you know my daughter?” I asked her, because it was the natural thing to ask, and because something about the way she was standing there, the particular stillness of her, told me this was not a stranger who had wandered to the wrong grave.

She turned toward me, and when she saw my face, something moved across her own, a flicker of recognition and, underneath it, something that looked almost like fear.

“You’re her mother,” she said.

It was not a question.

“Who are you?” I asked.

She glanced past me, toward the car, toward the small figure of Noah retrieving his card, and then she reached into her purse with a hand that was not quite steady.

“I made Chloe a promise,” she said quietly.