I was leaning my clean self over the sink to peer into the mirror to apply my eyeliner. Though I was only twenty-four, I had to get closer to the mirror now, and I just knew the next time I had an exam, my eye doctor was going to tell me I needed glasses. I’d never considered myself vain, but every time I pictured myself wearing glasses, I felt a pang. Maybe contact lenses? But the thought of sticking anything in my eyes made me shudder.

Every time I thought about this, I worried about the money correcting my vision might cost. We were saving every cent we could to make the down payment on the house we were hoping to buy here in the Dallas area. St. Louis was more centrally located from a business point of view, but we could see our sisters more often if Dallas was our home base. Probably Iona and Hank wouldn’t care for that, and they might throw a lot of obstacles in our way. They’d formally adopted the girls. But maybe we could persuade them that the girls would benefit from seeing us as much as we would from seeing them.

Tolliver came into the bathroom and paused to kiss my shoulder. I smiled as my eyes met his in the mirror.

“Police activity down the street,” he said. “You know anything about that?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” I said, feeling guilty. I hadn’t taken the time to explain to Tolliver before I’d gotten in the shower, and he’d distracted me after that. Now I told Tolliver about the dead man, and I explained about the rock and the window.

“The cops have found him by now, so you did the right thing. I have to say, I wish you’d just left him,” Tolliver said.

Pretty much what I’d expected him to say; he was always cautious about being pulled into any situation that we hadn’t been paid to deal with. Since I was watching him in the mirror, I saw the subtle changes in his stance that said he was going to switch the subject, and he was going to talk about something serious.

“Do you ever think maybe we should just let go?” Tolliver said.

“Let go?” I finished my right eye and held my mascara wand to the lashes of my left eye. “Let go of what?”

“Mariella and Gracie.”

I turned to face him. “I don’t understand what you’re asking,” I told him, though I was very much afraid that I did.

“Maybe we should only visit once a year. Just send Christmas presents and birthday presents the rest of the time.”

I was shocked. “Why would we do that?” Wasn’t that the whole purpose of saving every cent we could—so we could become a bigger part of their lives, not smaller?