Tora stopped a few feet from Maria and waited for the other girl to notice she was there. When Maria didn’t react, Tora reached out and touched her shoulder.

“What?”

“It’s me, Tora.”

Maria stopped sobbing for a moment and sniffed to catch her breath. “What do you want?” she said.

Tora was silent for a few seconds, letting the emotion behind Maria’s words slide. Then she said, “I came to help find your sister…we all did.”

Maria slowly turned to see the four of them standing there. As Maria looked at each of them in turn, Tora noticed that her eyes were red and wet, and her tears had drawn shiny streaks down her cheeks. Finally Maria’s gaze fell upon Tora, and all of her sadness suddenly turned into anger. Her lips parted in a sneer, exposing clenched teeth, and her eyes narrowed slightly, focused like lasers. “You guys didn’t take her, did you?”

Tora said nothing, but that didn’t stop the others from offering up a response.

“Oh, c’mon,” muttered Harlan.

Argus threw his hands in the air and said, “I don’t believe this.”

Even Michael got into the act, grabbing Tora by the arm and trying to turn her around and away from Maria. “You don’t have to listen to this.”

But Tora stood her ground. She’d expected something like this from Maria—one last, desperate attempt to save face by passing the blame for what had happened onto someone else.

“I said, we’re here to help you, Maria.”

Maria looked at them all again, but this time all of her fury and rage had been replaced by hope. Her eyes were as big as dollar coins and her lips were pulled back, but this time in an expression of fear. “I’m sorry for the way I’ve been treating you, Tora,” she muttered. “All of you.”

“What?” said Michael, taking a step backward.

“Don’t believe her,” Argus whispered in Tora’s ear.

“It’s a trick,” Harlan offered. “She’s trying to trick us.”

Tora remained steadfast.

Maria shook her head. “No. No trick,” she continued, “I was angry when you got the part in Red Carnations instead of me, but I was even more angry when you were good in the play. I mean really good, better than I could have ever been.”

“You were good in your part, too, Maria.”

“Yeah, good in a small part.”

Tora put a hand on Maria’s shoulder. “There’s an old show business saying, Maria: There are no small parts, only small actors.”

“I thought you did a good job, Maria,” Michael offered. “You were really convincing as an old lady.”

Tora turned to look at Michael, gesturing at him to be quiet.

“Well she was…” Michael said, his voice trailing off.

At that moment, Maria starting crying again.

“Way to go, Mike,” Argus said, slapping Michael on the shoulder.