When we left the hospital, it was Mom who suggested we go to the Guernsey Cow for ice cream cones. We bought double scoops and walked through the barn, which smelled like soured milk. We sat in the car then, and my mom left on the radio while we finished our ice creams. “She’s a Rainbow” came on, and even Thomas sang. The sun was setting, and everything and all of us—Mom, Marie, Thomas, and me—were washed in a golden-orange light. The farmland, cows, picket fences, and silos were pink, catching the sun before the coming dark. Everything was beautiful, and for a moment we were held together by our longing to be what we had once been. I could see my mother as she sang. I could see her face, see how like a child she was in some ways. She hadn’t slept and had spent the whole day at the police station, and I wondered how much they had questioned her about why she’d kicked Ellen out of the car and why she’d left her children home alone. She must have felt accused. But here she was, eating ice cream. And she had driven through the night, straight back to us. I knew she loved us in the way that she could. And when I’d been most afraid, I had wanted her. There in the car she sang with us, and every time the part about combing hair repeated, we burst into laughter because of mine.

On Wednesday morning Mom drove back to North Carolina. None of us said anything to her about going back. I didn’t feel angry or resentful. I knew she felt outside of what had happened, that she didn’t know how to be in charge, that being here made her feel guilty. She needed to go back to what she had left so suddenly. She would be close to Beatrice, and somehow it was okay. Marie was already taking care of things. Before she left, Mom had gone to the Gambinos’. She and Ellen had had to be questioned together a second time, and afterward she had taken Ellen out to Gullifty’s in Rosemont, just the two of them, and they’d talked. Ellen told us that Mom had said she was sorry, that Ellen had been so brave, braver than she could imagine anyone in that situation being. Ellen said it was all going really well until Mom told her she needed to work on her bad temper.

When Mom left to go back to North Carolina, I stood with her in the driveway.

“I did look for her that night, Libby,” she said. “I took the car and went and looked for her.”

“I know. Marie heard you leaving. We figured you were trying to find her.”

“I wish you felt you could tell me things.”

I looked at the ground.