“She was so busy. She once made me bake a cake for your preschool class and pretend it was hers, from a family recipe. She didn’t have time for any of that, anything too domestic. She would buy you toys, though. Precious dolls that you couldn’t really play with, the collectible kind that you could put on a shelf and look at.” She finally finishes the croissant, a tiny crumb hanging by the corner of her mouth. “Once she got sick, it sucked her dry. She couldn’t work. She couldn’t go into the city. The cancer just ate her personality up until she had nothing else to say. It was heartbreaking to watch.”

Anneliese’s eyes drop down to her lap, and though I’m salivating for more, I don’t push again. Maybe it was too traumatizing as a young woman to watch someone like my mother die so quickly. Whatever reason Anneliese has to hold back is valid, and I decide then to honor it. “You know, no one’s ever told me that last part. They just gloss over her death, because we’re supposed to ‘celebrate her life’ and all that. So thank you. I appreciate the honesty.” I reach my hand across the table and take hers. She puts her other hand over our clasped ones, covering it, and we sit like that for a minute, skin to skin. Though her fingers are much daintier than mine, our palms are almost the same size. I wonder if our lifelines halt at the same spot, too.

“I think I want to go up to Isham, to visit the house where she died,” I say carefully. “Maybe next winter, on what would have been my dad’s seventieth birthday, I’ll finally go up there and say goodbye to both of them. I feel the need to see it now, since I’ve met you.” She nods, tells me that’s a good idea.

Beside us, a college student opens his laptop, carefully placing a large coffee and a Red Bull on either side of his keyboard, and I remember why I’d asked to meet.

“Something’s happened,” I say carefully, as if I’m going to jinx it, and Anneliese widens her eyes, drawing her shoulders up in alarm.

“Nothing bad. Something great, actually.” Her muscles soften, and the grip of her fingers loosens on my hand. “The dreams have stopped. I think it has something to do with you, and I don’t know why, but I’m so grateful.”