She keeps walking, and for a moment I think she isn’t going to answer me, but then her voice floats back to me. “I did live there. For a summer. I lived a lot of places. Motels. An abandoned house. One summer we were homeless and couch surfed for two months.”

What?

I grab her hand and plant my feet on the brick road. Force her to stop. “Mom, what are you talking about?”

She stops walking too, and she turns halfway toward me, finally meeting my eyes. “Willow, my mom was… not well. When things got too tough, or she found a new boyfriend, she’d drop us off here with Daisy. Sometimes for a night or two, sometimes for months at a time. We never knew when we’d see her again or if she was coming back.”

Shock is flooding up through me now, making everything around me almost trancelike. There are obviously things I don’t know about my mom, but is it possible I don’t know anything about her? “But… in the article, you said your mom was a well-known hostess—”

“I lied,” she says curtly.

I’m struggling to put the pieces together, remake this woman in front of me. One piece rises to the surface. “You were homeless?”

“Off and on,” she says. “Salem was never quite my home, but it was the most home I had.” She looks defeated now, her eyes exhausted. It almost hurts to make her keep talking, but I can’t help my questions.

“So what happened to your mom?”

She drops her eyes. “The last time I saw her, Sage and I were fourteen. She dropped us off with Daisy, and…” Now her eyes are welling up; my hand darts out on its own, grabbing hers again. “We got a call from a police officer in Montana. She and her boyfriend had hit a semi. They were both killed instantly.”

“Oh.” It’s a tiny, crumpled sound. Completely inadequate. “Mom.” My hand finds its way to my heart like it does whenever something really hurts. By the time my mom was my age, she’d been through so much more than I could even imagine.

She exhales, and for a brief moment we both stand motionless. The sun is setting behind her, and the streets are filling up with pockets of tour groups and crowds coming in and out of bars and restaurants. I have no idea what to say.

She looks more tired than I’ve ever seen her. I know I can’t push anymore, but I can’t help this last bit. “And now you’ve lost your sister….”