“I didn’t see you there,” she said. She deftly closed the book and slid it out of sight. “No need to apologize. I was just finishing up Agatha’s nightly reading.”

“Sounds heavy,” I said without thinking.

“We try to read widely,” she said, and I caught a hint of offense in her tone.

I nodded, knowing I’d done something wrong but not sure how to fix it.

“Go ahead,” she said gently. “I’ll be in shortly.”

Then she leaned over Agatha’s motionless form and kissed her forehead.

A searing sensation tore through my heart, and I closed my eyes and turned away.

My mother used to kiss my head like that.

I tried not to stumble as I made my way to my little room and put my dirty clothes in a tight bundle on the plain wooden chair in the corner. Then I sank onto the bed, facing away from the door, desperately trying to keep the tears out of my eyes. I felt myself on the edge of something huge and dark and yawning, some deep hole of loneliness I might never climb out of.

I’d been on this edge before and had always managed to back away from it—usually with the help of the arrival of a bossy nurse or a conveniently petty squabble with one of the Palmer House girls. But there was nothing like that here. No distractions. Nothing to shove me back from the edge.

There was nothing at all here.

Still, I shook myself—literally shook myself—and forced the darkness back.

I couldn’t fall apart on my first day.

Laura’s voice came from the doorway a few minutes later. “Margot? May I come in?”

I nodded and managed a yes that didn’t sound like it was being forced out of my mouth by a waterfall of impending tears.

The door opened, and Laura stepped halfway in. I could see that she wore a long, high-necked nightgown under a satiny floral robe cinched tightly around her tiny waist. “I brought you some tea. It’s chamomile and lavender—caffeine free. Tea always helps me relax.”

She set a cup of pale yellow liquid on the nightstand. “Thank you,” I whispered, desperate not to make eye contact.

“I wanted to mention . . .” she began. “I read through the medical information your caseworker sent. I hope you don’t mind—I just thought it was best for us to know what the doctors were thinking about the course of your recovery.”

This was a little confusing. “I’m—recovered,” I said. I’d broken a clavicle and bruised my sternum, but the rest of my trauma was your basic girl-escapes-from-sinking-car stuff: cuts, bumps, bruises, a little hypothermia. All in the past.