When I Was Four, My Mother Left Me Alone in a Church—Twenty Years Later She Returned Crying, “We Need You”

She was fifty-nine.

Widowed.

A church pianist.

She lived in a small cream-colored house filled with books, old records, mismatched furniture, and lavender sachets tucked into almost every drawer.

My first placement after the church had not lasted.

Neither had the second.

I had stopped unpacking completely.

When Florence showed me the room she had prepared, I kept my small suitcase zipped beside the bed.