He shook his head. “We all become the person we are from the person we were—if that makes sense—and I don’t believe your mother was any different. Does it really matter how she became that way?”

“Yes, it does. For me it does.”

He sighed.

“It matters more than I can explain.” I turned to him and grabbed his forearm. “You see, she changed. She was this wide-open loving girl who believed she could fly and write words that could change the world, and then she became cold and calculating, and her only goal was a perfect and appropriate life. She closed her heart. And that could happen to me. I see it happening to me, and I want to know why it happened to her—how. I want to stop it in myself.”

Uncle Cotton sighed. “Your life is yours. It doesn’t matter what closed her heart. It only matters that you don’t close yours.”

“Oh, I know what closed her heart.”

“What?” he asked.

“Love. Rejection.”

“Your dad loves her more than any man I know has loved any woman.”

“Not him.” I held up my hand. “I’m sorry.” I looked away, searching in vain for some way to reverse the words I’d just spoken, to take them out of the air and put them back into my mouth. I looked at him. “That’s not something you need to know, and it’s not something I should have told you.”

He smiled, but even in the dark I could see it was a sad smile.

We were quiet long enough for me to wonder if he was angry or upset. Then he spoke. “I knew her only during those summers we were all involved in the movement.”

“You were there, too?”

“Of course. I thought you knew that.”

I shook my head.

He pointed toward Birdie. “I thought she would have told you.”

“No, she didn’t.”

“It was a long time ago, Ellie.”

“Yes, I know. Who else was there? Can you tell me?”

“Sure I can tell you. Let’s see, there were Micah Reynolds and crazy Otis Shepherd. Margaret Parsons and Celia Babcock.”

“Wait here. Wait—I’m gonna run and get some paper. I want you to tell me some names.”

“No, go enjoy the party, Ellie. We can talk about this any ole day.”

He hugged me and faded into the crowd and candlelight, greeting friends as I stood against the railing with a bit of something I might call hope.

The sun moved to the other side of the earth, the moon a mere thin smile above us, when I turned and saw Hutch’s back; he was talking to a man, his voice lost in the noise. I tapped his shoulder. He turned and smiled at me as if he knew I was behind him the entire time.

“Hey, Ellie.”

“I was wondering when you’d get here.”