It is the act of someone whose love was longer than her own life, who was still, with her last clear thought, standing between her daughters and the dark.

As of yesterday, Evelyn, those shares have fully matured.

Which is why I have spent six months trying to find you.

To give you what your mother left.”

Chapter 21 — Four Hundred Thousand

He handed me the certified check, and I took it, and I looked down at it, and I could not, for a long moment, make the number on it mean anything at all.

It was made out to me and to Chloe, both our names, in formal type.