“But we can’t do the time—or whatever we were doing in that time—again. Exactly again.” Molly waved her hands in the air, rolled her eyes. “Oh, forget it, Mom. You don’t understand what I’m asking. You don’t understand—”

“Don’t say it, Moll. Don’t say I don’t understand you.”

“Well, you don’t.”

Amy took a deep breath. Here they went again—why couldn’t little girls stay five years old and still love and believe their mommies? “Well, I do understand the question. It’s actually a very profound question, and it will come as no surprise to you, but your mother knows nothing. I don’t know where time goes. I don’t have any idea whatsoever. What made you think about it?”

Molly chewed on the side of her thumbnail. “I don’t think that you don’t know anything. I was only wondering. There are so many things I don’t want to forget, but I bet I will.”

Amy smiled at her daughter, hoping the love she was about to express would come through as love instead of “smothering.” It was a toss of the dice every day. She knew mothers who, for now, refrained from their deepest expressions of love for their teenage daughters in fear of the retaliation and accusations, the slammed doors and scrunched faces. She would never stop telling Molly she loved her.

“I love you, Molly, and that is a very, very good question. The only answer I can think of is in our memories, in what we leave behind: life, I guess.”

“Oh.”

The discussion ended and Molly pushed the button on the radio and closed her eyes, thumped her head back and forth against the headrest to the beat of the music.

A tall girl in a matching Nike ensemble slammed the ball across the net toward another player. Amy sat alone in the crowded stands waiting for Molly’s turn on the court. She watched the girl’s muscles, taut and trained to win, and she realized that she did know where time went, but she wouldn’t tell her daughter. Time was stored in her body in such a way that the first mention or shiver of the past called it forth; memories were not just hidden in her brain for her to gaze at in sweet reverie as a moving picture of life. Past time was attached to her body’s response—muscle-gripping and emotional washes—hiding in her cells. Memory came how and when it pleased. Time grew and expanded and saved its face for dreams and moments when she least wanted or needed to see it.

Carol Anne appeared and waved her hand in front of Amy’s face. Lost in thought, Amy started.

“Are you there? Hello?” Carol Anne asked.

“Hey . . .” Amy rubbed at her eyes as if Carol Anne had just turned on the lights.

“Where are you?”

“Here . . . what do you mean?”