With patient help, she learned to distinguish mistakes from danger.

Their progress was not a straight line.

It looked like school mornings, therapy sessions, birthday invitations, quiet evenings, difficult questions, and more ordinary laughter than Caroline had dared hope for when she drove to the hospital that first night.

For the twins’ eighth birthday Caroline baked a chocolate cake and placed two small yellow suns on the icing.

She told them their mother used to draw suns on napkins, and that she thought Amelia would like the cake.

Nora asked whether it was all right to be happy on a day when their mother could not be there.