“I won’t make promises I can’t control,” I said.

“But I can promise to tell you the truth and to keep showing up when you want me there.

If something changes, I’ll speak to you instead of vanishing.”

“People say that.”

“I know.”

She studied me for a while.

Then she pulled a folded photograph from her notebook.

It was a picture of Marianne, Chloe, and Sophie standing beside a science fair display when the girls were nine.