Little bird?

Yes, Mama?

Je t’aime.

I love you, too. There’s a knock on the door. Goose bumps rise. Mama?

Don’t be afraid.

More knocking. Louder.

When I sit up, the side of my face sticks to Mama’s dress and my hair is slicked back, dried like glue to my skull. I look into eyes the color of sea glass we collect on the beach. Mama? The dry red paint on my skin pinches and cracks as I throw my arms around her neck. I see the numbers 2 and 9, letters T-l-y, and the words je t’aime and birdie . . .

I will see you soon.

Promise?

Oui.

I creep toward the door, knees wobbly. It crashes open . . .

“Holy hell,” cries a woman with a silver police badge on her chest and a gun at her hip.

The policeman beside her picks me up. “I’ll get the girl out of here.”

I struggle out of his arms, dive under the table for my snow globe. When the cop latches on to my ankle, yanks me out, it falls from my hand. The sound of shattered glass fills me with rage. You can’t take her from me!

Kicking free, I lunge under the table as water and snowflakes pour onto the wood. I scamper farther and grab for the figures inside the globe just as the policeman rounds the other side of the table. His black boot mistakenly comes down on my outstretched hand, grinds it into the cup of jagged glass that cradles the mother and daughter. Pain bites deep. But I have them. I’ll never let you go, Mama . . .

—

I open my eyes in this house that is no longer my home. Knowing what happened here; that I was never abandoned but instead much loved; that opening the gray door wasn’t my invitation to death, but simply a child who obeyed Mama’s instructions, that what followed wasn’t my fault, that all of it matters but doesn’t define me. I built an elaborate castle to hide a treasure that was never buried in sand.

Mama softly says: The truth has two edges.

“I will wield it as wisely as I can.”

I will always be with you.

“I’ll always be with you, too.”

FORTY-NINE

Thomas

I waited outside with Moose, both of us worried, though Moose was the only one who whimpered. When Sylvie finally emerged, dark had fallen. We left the key where Kathy had instructed, a clever hidden panel in the wooden fence, and walked to the car.

Gently, I asked, “Sylvie, are you okay?”

She looked to the sky. The night had cleared and there were countless stars. One fell, the tail a scrape of orange that glowed long after the brilliant pinpoint extinguished. “That was Mama.”

“Do you know who killed her?”

“Yes. But it doesn’t matter anymore.”

We drove back to the hotel, sat in the car when we got there with the engine off. “Do you remember it all?” I asked.