“Bruno!”

She went down onto her knees on the cold tile, and she wept, and there was nothing performed in it, nothing calculated; it was the oldest and worst grief there is, a mother’s, and whatever else Camellia had done, in that moment she was only a mother who had lost her son, and the whole room went silent in the presence of it.

And in the silence, the pieces I had been holding without understanding fell, all at once, into their terrible pattern.

“Bruno,” I said, slowly, “is Camellia’s son.” I turned to my husband.

“Why was Camellia’s son wearing my daughter’s raincoat, Luke?

Why was he in your car?”