She points me toward a comfy-looking couch, but I can’t seem to make my feet move. I’m staring at the photo of my mother that sits on the piano in the corner. It’s just a snapshot. She’s standing on the edge of a stage. Holding a bouquet of flowers. Bright lights shine above her head, and she’s smiling. It looks so much like me that for a minute I can’t figure out where I was when that picture was taken.

This must be the picture Cole told me about. The one he grew up seeing.

Willa steers me to the couch and settles me in one corner. “Here,” she says, and she covers me with a thick, soft blanket. Then she reaches down and smooths my hair away from my face.

“If you’re looking for your mother, you look in here with me. Not out there in the dark alone.” She moves to the big television against the other wall and bends down to rummage around in the cabinet, then pops a DVD into the player. “We had all these old movies converted to disks a few years ago, but I kind of miss the tapes.”

Willa picks up the remote and crosses back to the couch. She sits on the other end and tucks her legs up underneath her. Then she presses a button. And my mother is suddenly alive.

She’s lounging on a blanket under a tree, reading. She’s young. Not much older than me. And she’s wearing a University of Texas T-shirt. Her ice-blonde hair is pulled back in a ponytail. “Whatcha reading?” a voice asks, and I recognize it as Willa’s. My mother holds up a book. Interview with the Vampire. Then she rolls over on her back. And the camera shuts off.

She comes to life again. This time she’s perched on a brick wall with a red plastic cup in her hand. She’s laughing. I’ve never heard my mother laugh before. I freeze. Unable to breathe or move. That laughter in my ears. This is the most alive my mother has ever been for me. Then she looks at the camera. Blows a kiss in our direction. “Love you,” she says. And I know she’s talking to whoever is holding the camera. Willa, I guess. But to hear her say those words is still everything, and this deep and terrible yearning bubbles up from somewhere inside me.

I feel so robbed.

Cheated.

I set my mug on the coffee table in front of the couch and lean forward to stare at this woman who looks and moves so much like I do, but who has a different fire in her green eyes.