“No. I think I need to leave.” It was a bad idea coming here today, with the wafting flowery fragrance, the people, too many people in one space who knew her, who loved her. And who am I? Some fraud, some harbinger of unsettling, horrific harm. What was I doing? What had I thought I was going to glean from this? This wasn’t only bad for me, it was bad for them, too. All I could possibly bring these people was misery.

I step back into the building, into the cool marbled lobby, away from those hordes, when I feel a tap on my shoulder. Quinn shields me, tries to hustle me away. But I turn, out of instinct, or some rusty part of me that used to know how to act at parties.

When I turn, I see Odilie as she was ten years ago, that face peeping out of caked-on makeup, poorly dyed hair. “Vera! I wanted to say hi before you left. I’m really glad you came. It means a lot to us.” I gape at her for a moment, her smile kind, even as her eyes are red-tinged, her mascara and liner smudged by tears. “I’m Page. Odilie’s sister.”

She must have spoken at the ceremony. It must have been obvious that I would have known who she was. And yes, Page, of course, Page. Odilie’s little sister; she’d posted one photo of them together. And now she’d morphed into a woman a little younger than me, so hauntingly like Odilie that it was like seeing a ghost.

“Page,” I say and she leans in for a hug, long and tight. “Good to meet you.”

“My parents, my family, they’d love to meet you. I know you were on your way out, but if you could just stay one more minute?” And I’m being coaxed back into the courtyard, toward her family huddled at a table, strangely segregated from the rest of the group, as if they’re the outsiders here, at the anniversary of their own daughter’s death.

And for the first time since I got here, I can feel the thrum of murmurs. Out in the open, in the sun, people are recognizing me. No roar. Only a quiet rush of whispers, eyes on my outfit, my shorter hair. But Page is pulling me forward into the thick of her kin and I can’t turn away now; I can’t get lost again in the crowd when she seems to be pulling me inside something.