Seven Years After My Daughter’s Funeral, I Followed Her Husband to a Rehabilitation Center—And Saw a Woman I Thought Was Dead

I looked toward Dorothy’s notebook.

“Did you tell Ava?”

“Not at first.”

“When?”

“Only after Melissa began asking about her, and when there was a plan for telling her with support.”

“What did you tell her before that?”

“The same thing we’d always said.”

“That her mother was dead.”