“There is a syndrome called Capgras delusion, the sufferers of which believe, wholeheartedly, that a person they love has been replaced by someone else pretending to be them.” You’re lying on your back on the sofa, with the book held up above your head. You’ve shelled out another thirty dollars for a new copy. You’re reading aloud. Your mother’s author photo keeps winking at you from the inside cover whenever the pages sag to reveal it. She’s got her hair in one of those crown-type updos that you never learned how to do. You could’ve asked her to teach you. The ninth edition of you is lying on her stomach on the floor, chin resting on both her fists. She might be ten. This isn’t the kind of thing she should be hearing.

“It’s extraordinarily rare, usually comorbid with paranoid schizophrenia—comorbid is, by the way, the word they use to tell you your child is suffering from the symptoms of more than one disorder. It’s a word that sounds right. All around the world, there are myths about children replaced, changed, made wrong by some external force. The common horror of parents feeling that the thing they love most is not right.”

Maura’s started to cry. When you look down at her, her eyes are so shiny it’s a little like looking at a cartoon. “Shit.” Get off the couch, take her in your arms, let her huddle up to you. Her body is small and warm, soft and warm, you can feel each of her individual bones. That feeling that sweeps over you, like holding a friend’s baby, like holding a half-starved kitten, like feeling the articulated bones in a bird’s wing. “Hey, shh.” Swaying back and forth there on the floor, rocking her in your arms. Of course she’s crying, what did you think would happen? “Shh. It’ll be all right.”

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