In the stretch of silence that followed, Amelia tucked her hands into her armpits and sharpened her eyes.

This is what she saw. The hair. Undeniably similar. The familiar nose. Better looking on a middle-aged woman. The serious way the woman walked. (That’s how I want to walk, thought Amelia.) Her distinct shape against the neighborhood scene, beneath a blue unbroken sky. The jacket. Amelia loved the woman’s jacket, open and flapping, corduroy the color of cantaloupe, with scalloped lilac trim on the sleeves and hem. Oh, how she loved the jacket. She’d never seen anything like it.

For just a second Amelia felt a separateness from every other person except the woman. And that second seemed to contain her whole life, everything that mattered. And the unfinished things inside her felt complete.

Amelia found it hard to breathe. The world was shrinking to a pinhole.

Now the woman came closer to the window. She whipped her hair into a high, loose bun, using the window as a mirror.

Now she passed right by them, glancing into the coffee shop, a mere sheet of glass separating them. Amelia didn’t speak, but with imploring eyes she asked, Do you know me? Is it me you’re looking for? Do I belong to you?

Now the woman walked out of Amelia’s direct line of sight. Out of the world.

Now there was something new in Casey’s voice when he said, “It’s really true. We’ve had a sighting. This is significant. This is the strangest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

And now Amelia whispered, “To me.”

Perhaps, this, this, was the start of her life.

Strange things always occur in life, she reasoned. Unbelievable things were as common as common ones if you were open to them, she told herself. If you looked beneath the surface.

Miracles did happen. At least, she believed they did. They could. Wasn’t it true? There are people whose hearts stop and then beat again. People who are missing for years and then show up one day out of the blue. There are kids who fall from great heights and barely suffer a scratch. If there were six billion people on the planet, couldn’t one uncanny, irrational thing happen to one of them, to her? Couldn’t she experience something from another dimension? Couldn’t she?

“We still have to name her,” said Casey. “You should. She’s your mother. What’s your mother’s name, anyway?”

Her mother’s name was Sabrina, but she didn’t want to say it out loud. “I’ll call her Epiphany,” said Amelia.

“Epiphany’s your mother’s name?”

“No. Epiphany is my middle name. My mother wanted to call me Epiphany because I was born on January sixth, the Feast of Epiphany.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s the day the Three Kings supposedly visited Baby Jesus with their gifts. But we’re not religious and my father thought it was an odd, trendy name. But, anyway, it’s my middle name. So that’s what I’m calling the woman.”

“Your mother. That’s cool. And, hey, it’s another one-word name like Feather.”