And when you didn’t, when you just quietly took care of a dying old woman who was nothing to you, I decided I would wait, and let you come to it in your own time.

But I am running out of time to wait.

Chapter 9 — The Eyes She Recognized

I turned to Juliet.

I needed to hear it from her, because my mother was dying and on a great deal of medication, and the cold part of my mind — the part that had kept me alive for fifteen years, that trusted nothing and no one — was already insisting that this could be a confusion, a delusion, a dying woman’s mistake.

That was the hope I reached for, and I am not proud of it, but I will be honest about it.