The ravaged side of her face felt as it always did, raw and stretched tight like a drum, and she knew only too well how it looked: the grafted skin was still fiery red, her left nostril was tugged and flattened toward her cheek, and her left eye with its new lid and surrounding puckers looked as though it belonged to a pig. She never voiced that to anyone—Rohan and his team had performed miracles in many ways so she wouldn’t have wanted to upset and insult them. They’d even transplanted tiny hair follicles from the back of her neck to help restore her eyelashes and eyebrow, but there was no sign of anything yet.

“Everything takes time,” Rohan had told her the day after that particular op, “but you’re doing very well, better than expected, so there’s no reason to think you won’t wear mascara on that eye again.” His smile was infectious, while hers was so taut on one side that only the other side lifted, giving her, she thought, a drunken, even piratical look. Or probably something far more grotesque.

“And your hair,” he’d pointed out with so much pride it could have been his own, “is growing back so fast and full I think you’re going to look even younger than before you came in.”

There was no chance of that, but he was right about how well it was coming through, quite gray unsurprisingly, but thick and even glossy, and perhaps she could agree with Jasmine that it was kind of funky. Not long enough yet to help mask any of the scars, but nothing was ever really going to do that.

“Are you OK?” Claudia asked, casting her a concerned glance as they began the ascent to Westleigh Heights.

“Yes,” Marcy said softly. This was the fourth time Claudia had asked since they’d left the hospital, and Marcy suspected she’d ask again before they got to the house. She didn’t mind, she understood that her daughter was nervous.

“Would you like me to pull over for a moment to give you a bit more time?” Claudia offered.

Marcy shook her head. It was going to take a lot more than time to make her feel ready to do this, so she’d decided simply to reassure Claudia when required, and actually in that distant place where her mind seemed to exist these days it was feeling like the right thing to do. She didn’t want to make life any more difficult for her than it already was, especially not after how frightened she’d been following the fire, and how hard she’d worked to make the house ready for the big return.