Candace freezes, her hand still holding Kat’s. Their arms are bent into a triangle, as though they might arm wrestle.

Tears are cascading down Candace’s face. “I would hold you in my arms, if I could, Kitty Kat. If it was safe, I would hold you.”

Kat suddenly bends forward to rest her head in her mother’s lap. With her other hand, Candace begins to stroke her daughter’s hair. They have found a way to embrace.

A second nurse brings me a chair, setting it close to the lounge, and I gratefully slip into it. It is beautiful to watch mother and daughter holding each other, and it is dreadful. For many long moments no one says anything. When Kat finally lifts her head, she turns to look at me and I can see that she has been exhausted by the emotional weight of the reunion. I hold my own hand out and she comes to me so that I can pull her into my lap. I position her so that she can still hold her mother’s hand but can rest against my bosom.

Candace looks up at me in both relief and anguish. “Do I know you?” she whispers.

“No.”

“Did Martin send you? Is . . . is he coming?”

Kat stiffens slightly in my lap when she hears her father’s name. I pat her knee gently. Candace notices.

“Martin is not coming.”

“What is your name again?”

“Please just call me Sophie.”

A few seconds of silence pass between us.

“How . . . why . . .” But Candace’s voice drops away. She surely can sense that I cannot answer all her questions with Kat sitting there listening. I nod to assure her that I do have the answers she seeks.

I begin to share with Candace all about our train trip, the views we saw out our window, the stop in Los Angeles, seeing the tall saguaro cactus for the first time. I keep the chatter light and cheery, sharing with this woman what Kat would tell her if Kat had been living a normal life up until now. Candace is smiling at my descriptions but looking nervously from me to her daughter, surely concerned that I am doing all the talking.

I silently plead with Candace not to ask why, and she must sense this. As I chatter away, I begin to rock slightly in my chair, lulling Kat—I hope—to slumber. Candace watches me in fascination and distress. I think she can tell that I love this child and maybe even that this child loves me. It is disconcerting to her, as it would be to me. When Kat is in deep sleep, at my request the first nurse brings large sofa pillows from the visitors’ lounge and makes a bed for her on the patio stones a few yards away. I lay the child down and return to my seat. Then the nurse leaves us, taking all but one resident inside. Only an older gentleman remains, and he is nodding off.