I left my penlight on as I led us out of the dark maze. It opened into a room that was supposed to have a moving floor. Except the floor, obviously, wasn’t moving. Nor was it staying still. With the motor off, the boards slid as soon as I put my foot down.

We crossed slowly and exited into the inevitable mirror maze. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of my adoptive dad. I turned fast and saw myself, at eight, when I’d been here with him, both of us making faces in the mirror. Part of me wanted to look away—even two years after his death, it still hurt too much. Yet a part of me wanted to keep looking, to get my fill of that memory. Then it faded, and I saw only myself, as I was now.

As I turned, I heard a familiar laugh, and there I was again, giggling and goofing around with my father, except this time my father was Todd Larsen. I was a toddler, and he was swinging me around, and even if I couldn’t hear what I was saying, I knew exactly what it was—faster, Daddy, faster! And he obliged, as my adoptive dad would later.

Two men who’d been so important in my life. Two fathers I’d loved with all my heart. Two very different men, and yet in some ways the memories felt the same, and that was confusing and unsettling. It also felt unfair to both, but what else did I wish for? That one of those relationships had been strained, like with my adoptive mother? Hellishly complicated, like with my birth mother? Or just plain hellish, like Gabriel’s with Seanna?

Gabriel caught up, and I saw us both reflected in the mirror. Only it was us at our first meeting, when he’d cornered me in the shortcut behind my Cainsville apartment. In the reflection, I saw my wary expression and his cool one, those ice-blue eyes hidden behind his shades, his shadow stretching out to me, making him seem even larger. He’d had a proposition. My mother had written a memoir, and while she couldn’t profit from it, he reasoned I should. I’d shot him down. Then, a few days later, I hired him as an expert on my parents’ case, not to help me prove they were innocent but to convince myself they weren’t.

As I turned from the mirror, I saw another image of myself, this time at a fundraising party with James. The fundraising party—a completely forgettable event that was now emblazoned on my memory. We were in the back hall, whispering after we’d escaped for sex. He told me he was considering running for senator—following in his father’s footsteps—and all I could think was “I can’t do it.” I could not be that wife. I was not that person.