“Yeah. And they didn’t want to get into trouble for bending or breaking any laws.”

I meet his eyes. “At the very least, I witnessed my mother’s murder. And at worst, I committed it.” I shiver, suddenly very cold. Did I kill my own mother?

“Sylvie, there’s no way that you could’ve—”

“Don’t. Please,” I say. “Neither of us knows for sure.”

There are more articles . . .

In one, Ricky Boylan, the UPS deliveryman, is quoted: “Soon as I got on the front porch, I was hit with the smell of death. My daddy worked as a butcher in a slaughterhouse. Smelled worse than he did when he came home at night.”

In another, a source at Legacy Hospital said: “The child can’t speak. We’re not even sure if she hears us. Who knows what she witnessed? I don’t think the little girl will ever come back.”

Thomas tries to slide the computer away. I hold tight, scroll through more articles, read how the police had no leads; that the case went cold; that ODHS hadn’t found any living relatives and my father, Edward C. Ford, was a Navy pilot who died before I was born in a training accident off the coast of Coronado, California. There’s a group called Mothers Against Satan who called for an exorcism . . .

A related obituary pops up:

The Oregonian

April 11, 2002

Ms. Tally Danzigger, 39, single mother to son Donald Danzigger, who predeceased her, has gone home to her Lord and Savior. Family members say her son’s kidnapping and the discovery by police, with the help of clairvoyant Olivia Ravanelle, that he was brutalized and murdered, left Ms. Danzigger despondent. Her sister, Gina Finney, asks that in lieu of flowers donations be made in her name to The Suicide Prevention Hotline . . .

I’ve heard the name Tally before. “How do I find out where Olivia Ravanelle lived?”

Thomas takes his computer, taps away for several minutes, then says, “The address is 29 Hydrangea Lane. That’s in—”

“Laurel,” I say.

“Do you remember any of it?” Thomas asks.

“Not yet,” I reply. But I will . . .

FORTY-SEVEN

Sylvie

We park by a two-story shingled house on the corner of Hydrangea and Fourteenth. I remember it from my dream, though now there’s a white portico built off the front and the yard has been heavily landscaped with rows of roses, lavender, and several Japanese maples. Despite the hailstorm, a few early tulips remain, their thick green stalks bent but unbroken.

The rain has dwindled to a typical Pacific Northwest April drizzle. It’s after seven but twilight hasn’t given up its hold and I can see down the entire street. Our house was the last one on the left. “Let’s go,” I say.

Memories trickle, like a tap slowly being forced open. The second bungalow on the right, where Boone the dog lived, has been repainted from green to slate, but the white-framed bay window remains. A family is inside at their dinner table—mom, dad, and three little girls. The Baileys’ place is diagonal across the street. They seemed very old when I was little, and might be in a senior center by now, or passed on. I don’t open the red door. That’s not why I’m here. What about Vince and Ted? They were probably only a few years older than I am now. In answer, a Range Rover pulls into their driveway and a mom and two teen boys climb out.