Oh yes, the Band-Aid, then eat something. Had I even eaten yet today?

The forgetfulness predated Vera’s disappearance, first becoming noticeable when Vera was a baby. Back then it was new-mom sleep deprivation. But lately it had gotten worse, because I didn’t want to drink my coffee or eat my breakfast. The perpetual grip on my stomach made all food intolerable, as if my body wanted to die along with Vera’s.

No. Nix the word die.

I didn’t believe that Vera was dead, no matter what the Pittsburgh Police Special Victims Unit or Detective Courtney Montgomery said.

Idling in the doorway, I noted how Vera’s bedroom looked exactly like it had the day she disappeared, minus a few items after the police had rifled through it with tornado intensity, looking for clues. With the expectation that Vera would come home and accuse her siblings of destroying her bedroom, I had straightened her London-themed comforter splashed with turquoise and gray images of Big Ben and the London Bridge, closed dresser drawers, tidied the closet. Things I’d done for the past fifteen years of her life. Inspired by her love of all things British, we had planned a trip to the United Kingdom as her graduation gift. I even baked two dozen scones—cranberry and chocolate chip, her favorites, using Brit gourmand Mary Berry’s recipes—and stored them in the freezer, waiting for her return. Back then I had expected. Now I wondered. Would we ever see Big Ben or the bridge together? I could only cling to pale hope these days.

I stepped inside. The bedroom suffocated me with its emptiness. No dirty laundry overflowing from her basket. No stained Vans scattered across the floor. No scent of beachy coconut lotion. Outside her window hung clouds pregnant with rain, reminders of the gray, eerie April day she had disappeared. Any minute now the sky would crack open and weep with me.

I felt a strange sensation, like something under the bed trying to grab my ankle, and stepping backwards I gave a little cry. Looking down, I saw Meowzebub’s orange and white paw clawing at the carpet, and then she poked her pumpkin head out triumphantly as if to say gotcha! The long-haired calico cat had been Vera’s boon companion ever since the spring night she showed up on our doorstep after a torrential downpour, drenched and shivering. Usually I was the softie that couldn’t resist a stray critter, no matter how woebegone, but this time it was Vera who pleaded with Oliver to let her keep the kitty. Oliver was putty in her hands.