They have been in contact since — irregularly, mostly messages, perhaps four hundred of them across three years, and eleven phone calls, and they have never met.

Willa told her about the wedding in March.

Willa is the reason there was a text message on the twenty-second of April.

Willa is the reason any of this happened at all.

Odile said — and I understood it, and it was still the worst thing said that night — “Willa, how could you.”

And my youngest daughter said the sentence that I have not been able to put down since.

“Because she’s my mom and I’ve never met her and I wanted to know what she sounded like.”