I ignore the tourists standing in front of the marble staircase flanked by lions, walk past the little cafe. I had tea there with Dad once. Earl Grey. Just the two of us, a father-daughter date. I hate missing him, missing this person who hurt us all.

I wonder if Mae and Drew and what’s left of my family think of me that way. As the person who hurt us all.

I slide through the marble halls, past the dark wood doors, the sound of people’s wet snow boots slapping on the stone echoing all around, then push through the double doors that lead to the library’s inner courtyard.

Even though it’s in the middle of Boston, this courtyard feels like a secret. It’s instantly silent, like the whole world has been muzzled. It reminds me of an Italian villa, like some of the places my parents took us that summer we went to Rome. It reminds me a little of Greece, too—the columns. The last time we were there to visit Yia-yia’s grave, I walked around the Acropolis thinking: As soon as you die, it’s as if you never existed at all. All the artists are unknown. No names signed on statues, no plaques on buildings. Except for a few people—Plato, Socrates, all those old white guys—any ancient Greek who ever lived has been erased from Earth. Practically any person who’s ever lived will be erased from Earth. That really bummed me out. But now I think maybe there’s freedom in that. Nobody matters, in the end. Which means nothing matters.

A statue of a dancing woman holding a baby twirls in the fountain in the center of the courtyard, covered in verdigris. The water is turned off for winter, the base hidden by a pristine pile of snow. Like me, the statue is heedless of the cold, of the square patch of open December sky that dumps snow on her head. Unlike me, she is holding her baby. Happy. Playing. I watch her for a moment. Them.

I would have come, Drew said. Where would I be, who would I be, if it had been Drew and not Micah? Or if Micah had come? If I hadn’t been on drugs and worried I had ruined the acorn inside me? You can’t grow into a tree if your soil is soaked in opiates.

So many ifs.

It doesn’t matter anymore.