There were five more performances before Steph. They were all decent, and a couple were really great. One duo—a singer in a green velvet dress, accompanied by another woman playing a fiddle—were so good they got an encore. Across the table, Lisa leaned over to Steph and whispered something in her ear. Steph had been watching the duo onstage, but now she cast her eyes down and looked a little nervous. I wondered if she had stage fright.

My mother never seemed to be afflicted by it. She relished performing live, and she always seemed to be in control of her performance; every last gesture was choreographed. Some critics called her too calculating, a little false. She told me they didn’t understand. She wasn’t false; she was larger than life. That was the point, she said, of opera.

Applause rippled through the café, and Steph leaned down to unlatch her guitar case. Her eyelashes were dark against the pale skin of her cheek. And then Linda Goode called her name, and Steph got up, throwing the strap of her guitar over her left shoulder. The café had filled over the last hour, and it took Steph a minute to make her way through the crowd. By now night had fallen completely, and the overhead lights had been dimmed, leaving only a few pools of brightness over the back counter and on the stage. Steph stepped into the spotlight and smiled.

“Hi, Fairfax,” she said, pretty low-key. “I’m Steph Nichols.”

Lisa whistled, and there was a smattering of applause from the audience. I joined in while Steph strummed a couple of chords on her guitar. The movement of her hand and forearm caused the koi tattoo to wriggle as if it were alive. She began to pluck out a wistful melody, and then, without further introduction, she leaned into the microphone and started to sing.

Her voice was soft and edged with roughness at the same time. The song she sang was about two kids who picked wild blackberries together during the height of summer, but as they grew up, their friendship changed.

“You never said you loved me

But I know you well enough to know

You don’t have to say it for me to hear it

I can hear you even so.”

Longing bloomed inside me, a sweet ache that I was embarrassed to feel. I didn’t know Steph at all. I had never been attracted to girls before. And yet here was this girl—this very confusing human being—and here was my body responding to her. A heated flush across my skin; my pulse leaping. Her voice was like a hook in me. I felt as if everyone near me must be able to tell.