Hawley did not like to speak about it. Because of this the air shimmered a bit whenever he did, as if Lily’s name were conjuring something dangerous. Most of what Loo knew about her mother was contained in a box full of mementos, a traveling shrine that her father re-created in the bathroom of each place they lived. Motel rooms and temporary apartments, walk-ups and cabins in the woods, and now this house on the hill, this place that Hawley said would be their home.

The photographs went up first, around the bathtub and sink. Her father affixed each carefully so they wouldn’t rip—shots of Loo’s mother and her long black hair, pale skin and green eyes. Next, he arranged half-used bottles of shampoo and conditioner, a compact and a tube of red lipstick, a bent toothbrush, a silk bathrobe with dragons sewn on the back and cans of Lily’s favorite foods—pineapple and garbanzo beans—along with bits of handwriting, scraps of paper discovered after her death, things she had needed from the grocery store, lists of activities she had hoped to finish by the following Saturday and a parking ticket with fragments of a dream scribbled on the back. Old car with hinges folds down into a suitcase. Every time Loo used the toilet or took a bath, she faced her mother’s words, watching the letters bleed together over the years and the ink fade from the steam of the shower.

The dead woman was an ever-present part of their lives. When Loo did something well, her father said: Just like your mother, and when she did something bad, her father said: Your mother would never approve.

Loo squeezed the trigger. She did it again and again, reloading for over an hour, occasionally nicking bark from the tree but missing the target every time, until there was a pile of brass shells at her feet and her arm ached from the weight of the gun.

“The mark’s too small,” said Loo. “I’ll never hit it.”

Hawley pulled a wallet of tobacco from his pocket and shook it back and forth at her. Loo put down the gun. She walked over and took the pouch from him, as well as a package of rolling papers. She slid one thin piece of paper away from the rest, folded it in half with her finger and then tucked some of the tobacco along the crease. Then she placed the filter and began rolling, pinching the ends, licking the edge to seal the fold. She handed the cigarette to her father, and he lit it and settled onto a rock nearby, leaning into the sun. He had started a beard, as he did whenever the weather turned cold, and he scratched it now, his fingers catching in the wiry brown hair.

“You’re thinking too much.”