We used to talk about these things in faculty meetings and I wonder how she knows them. Someone took the time to become educated about children and how they develop. I can’t imagine it was Mick. When he comes now, with the food or to collect Alice, he seems agitated and distracted, like he has too much on his mind. Or maybe his mind is overwhelmed by what he’s done and the consequences that are looming. I try to put him at ease with my docile behavior, but then this seems to repulse him. I have been thinking about this dilemma. What does he want from me? What will make his mind settle? He cannot go on forever in the state he’s in.

“Okay,” I answer. “Why don’t we finish this game and then have some lunch. The morning has already passed and the other thing that helps us be smart is food.”

I need to finish what I started today. This is further than we have ever come in talking about the mommies of these little plastic dolls and I need to know more about Hannah’s. I need to know how old she was, what she looked like, where she slept, and why she wanted to leave. I need to know the things she said and did and how she wore her hair. I need to know how she was like my daughter. Like Nicole. I need to know so I can be more like her myself. Draw him to me and not my daughter.

Their paths can never cross again. Not ever. But what if she comes back here to look for me? What if the search is not really over?

I run through the facts of my disappearance. The car with no gas, my phone still there in the charger. No dead body found, so I must be somewhere. Won’t they start to wonder how I am surviving in my new life as a grown-up runaway? If he’s used the credit card again, he would have risked being detected. That would be foolish, and he does not seem foolish to me.

I step outside the details and think that maybe they just know. They will know that I would never leave them. Not after I took Annie from them.

Or maybe I’m thinking about this all wrong. Maybe they will see it as a gift—finally freeing them of my presence. The miserable, sad reminder of our family tragedy.

Suddenly, Alice speaks and I force myself to leave these thoughts. These horrible thoughts that have caused beads of sweat to run down my face.

“Let’s keep playing,” she says.

I continue the game. Suzannah asks Hannah more about her mommy.

Hannah’s mommy is a fantasy. She is the mommy Alice wants, the one she might even believe she once had.