She held her hands at her sides, resisting the impulse to reach for me.

“Hello, Helen,” she said.

And there was my mother’s voice, carried by somebody else’s throat.

PART 5

I knew her first by the eyes.

Not their color, because ours had always been different, but the way they narrowed when she tried not to cry.

Evie had done that as a child when Father reprimanded her.

Now the woman across the room was doing it again.