“Do you remember what your dad said?”

A strong wind buffets the SUV. I grip the handrail as we’re pushed sideways. Waves break on the river’s surface, creating swirls of icy spray. “He didn’t punish me, which was a surprise. He was disappointed and that was worse. Did you ever let your parents down?”

Sylvie speeds up, changes lanes. “The last thing Mom said when I left home was that there’s a place in hell for ungrateful children.”

I whistle low. “Wow. She’s religious?”

Sylvie snorts.

“Do you believe in heaven and hell?”

“No.”

“Huh. How can you have faith in what you do, connect with people on the other side, if you don’t believe in heaven?”

“Those words, the other side, are necessary to communicate with my audience. I have no idea where we go when we die. I have no idea if there’s a heaven, hell, or even a God. There’s just here, being alive, in this world, and there.”

It’s a great quote for my exposé, but it picks at a scab that has never healed. I can relate to Sylvie’s audiences. We all want to believe that the people we loved aren’t moldering six feet under. Moose hangs his head over the front seat while Chris is curled on my lap. Playfully, she bats his nose. She’s lost more hair on her belly. It makes her look like she’s in the midst of chemotherapy. My chest tightens. “They like each other.”

“There’s no pretext in the animal world,” Sylvie says.

“You sound jealous.”

“Aren’t you?”

I switch gears. “Before I meet them, I’d like to know your first memory of your adoptive parents.”

Sylvie wags a finger at me. “Don’t call my mom that.” A gust hits our car and I grip the side of my seat, relieved when Sylvie returns both hands to the wheel.

“Adoptive? Why not?”

Moose rests his head on Sylvie’s shoulder and she kisses his snout. “You only have one chance to make a good first impression.”

“So what was your first impression of your new parents?”

Slipping a Tums from her bag on the seat between us, she swallows it whole.

“You eat a lot of those. Medical problem?”

“Love the taste.”

I grimace. “What was dinner that first night like?”

“My mom made sushi.”

“Who gives a little kid raw fish?”

Sylvie chuckles. “My mother is not a macaroni and cheese kind of woman.”

“You actually ate it?”

“I was a foster kid. I didn’t know I had a choice. That night I used chopsticks for the first time. She rubber-banded them together to make it easier. Dad was pretty quiet while we ate. After dinner he brought a stack of square paper, all different colors, to the table and made origami swans, tigers, pheasants, dogs. He had such big hands but he taught me how to fold those delicate animals. That night we lined our menagerie on my windowsill. I liked him.”

She didn’t say she liked her mom. “When’s the last time you went home?”