In fact, things were getting more luscious, more ornamental, as Los Feliz attracted wealthier residents. Many of our neighbors’ homes had been renovated, their grounds upturned and replanted, mismatching my memories. But my old house was still shabby, the lawn a scorched brown square. That wasn’t because of her MS, that’s just how Mom kept things.

I’d stay here for the night before driving up to Mimico for my interview with Pavel Firea, the trial subject. Before leaving New York, I’d called him, and he said he’d be happy to speak with me.

“You understand,” he said in an accent I couldn’t place, “I owe my life to the trial. A little interview is the least I can do.”

“I like this,” Mom said, and touched my shortened hair, “but my god, what happened to your face?”

I told her about the shooting in Arcade, and my concussion.

“You had a concussion?”

“It was minor. I had a good doctor.”

“Your brain is your livelihood, Whitney.” After inspecting the wounds and satisfying herself that I was healing, she said, “Colorado is just crazy. Is that your only bag? I made up the bed in the guest room.”

I teased her that it was still my room, but she replied, factually, “All your things are in the basement now.”

“I know.”

Around the age of forty, Mom was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and even after all this time, it hurt that she didn’t keep me apprised of her attacks. When I was on the brink of moving to New York, I remember offering to come back to Los Angeles instead. There’s no cure for MS—it only gets worse—and I thought I should be near her. But she wouldn’t hear of it. The way she spoke of Los Angeles, you’d think it was some fringe outpost where I’d never find work in media.

In truth, Mom preferred to be alone. If she needed anything, she called her friends. That’s a part of her life I never puzzled out—the strength of her friendships. After dropping my bag in my room, I passed through the kitchen and once again marveled at the photos on the fridge, all of Mom and a group of women she called “the gang,” an assortment of former USC colleagues, their sisters and sisters-in-law. The gang went hiking, saw movies, took trips to Arizona, where one of them owned a ranch. In the photos, Mom was always smiling, eyes bright, like a kid with something sweet. The photos seemed so out of place in that house, where she never turned on the lights, never made a joke, at least not while I was in it.