“Yes, dahling, you make your scars work for you. They are fabulous because you are fabulous.”

“And you are crazy.”

But it feels so good to see her smile that I don’t even try to fight her. Piper wheels herself around the room, singing at the top of her lungs, her tattoo moving with her shoulder blades like a phoenix in flight.

“ ‘The Phantom of the Opera is here…inside my mind!’ ”

On Saturday night, I get ready in front of Cora’s bathroom mirror, fastening on my mask, which Piper and I painted half white to look more Phantomesque. Cora, who thinks the whole idea is morbid, helps me put on a black cape and wig Glenn once wore as Dracula.

She stands behind me, brushing out the strands of the wig just like my mom used to do with my own hair.

“Are you sure about this?” she asks for the twentieth time.

In the mirror, the painted portion of the mask covers half my face, while the other half flattens my skin slightly, smoothing and blanching it uniformly.

With my black wig slicked into a low ponytail and the white button-up shirt and cape, I actually look like the infamously disfigured Broadway recluse. Perhaps even more surprisingly, I look like a normal girl dressed up in a costume. Sure, half the costume is my own personal permanent Halloween, but tonight, I let myself believe the lie.

Just a girl in a costume going to a party.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

I feel pretty good about myself until I see Piper on my doorstep. Instead of being up in her usual ponytail, her hair flows over her shoulders in tiny, tight tendrils framing her face and completely covering the scars on her neck. Nude compression garments cover the rest of her scars beneath the fragile straps of Sara’s green dress.

I fight the urge to rip off my mask and shut the door.

“You look amazing,” I force myself to say instead.

Glenn lifts Piper’s wheelchair over the front step and then stands back to admire us.

“You girls clean up nice.” His smile falters when his eyes land on Piper. “That’s Sara’s dress.”

Piper smooths out the satin fabric on her lap.

“Is it okay?” Piper asks.

Glenn smiles again, but this time only with his lips, his mind floated elsewhere.

“Do you remember when that son-of-a-gun couldn’t get that corsage pin on her?”

Cora laughs.

“He almost stabbed her to death right in front of us.” She wipes her eyes, wet from laughing, and then all three of us are laughing together, and even though the memory stings a little, it feels good to remember.

Cora reaches out her hand to Piper.

“Of course you can wear it,” she says. “Sara would want someone Ava loves to use it.”