I grab my things and head to the shower. The hot water feels good on my aching muscles. It clears my head a little, and when I show up at Glory’s desk, she doesn’t seem to notice that anything’s off at all.

I’m getting awfully good at covering things up. Even better than I’ve always been.

I’m reaching for today’s stack of file folders when Glory pulls something out of her purse. She starts to give it to me, then hesitates, like she can’t quite bear to let it leave her fingers. “I found this,” she says. “I knew I had it somewhere, but it had been so long since I looked for it.”

She hands me a photo and hovers over my shoulder while I stare at it. My mother is sitting at one of the heavy wooden tables in the library. She’s pecking away at a laptop keyboard, and she has a couple of notebooks spread out beside her. They’re open, so I can’t see the covers, but I wonder if one of them is the green one. The one I have now. She’s looking down at the laptop screen, and a few strands of blonde hair hang loose in front of her face. You can see her eyes clearly, though. And they are so bright.

“That’s my favorite photo of Nicki,” Glory says. “God. I love that sparkle in her eyes.”

“She looks happy,” I say, and Glory nods.

“Nicki was happy. Most of the time. But I think she was torn between the life she had and the life she knew she could have, if she wanted it.” Glory looks at me. “She was becoming. You know? She was getting ready to step out and be who she really wanted to be, I think. And becoming is never painless.”

I hold the photo out to Glory. “Thanks for showing me this,” I tell her. But she doesn’t take it from my hand.

“No,” she says, and she smiles. “Keep it. I have my memories of Nicki. You should have the picture.”

All the rest of the afternoon, I keep thinking about what Glory said. It plays on a loop in my head while I’m filing invoices and answering Brody’s phone calls. Because what if that’s what I’m doing, too? What if I’m becoming? Only I can’t become who I’m supposed to be until I know who I am. Where I came from.

Until I know my mother.

And what happened that night.

And like Glory said, there’s pain in that.

When Lex and Val come crashing through the screen door for dinner, Lex looks so relieved to see me.

“Av!” he says, like we’ve been separated for seven years. “I haven’t seen you all day!” He gives me a little grin. “How’d that private rehearsal session go, you lucky duck?”