“April,” she says softly, and I think she’s going to say something else, but she crumbles, shoulders shaking. I can see her tears fall to the ground, raining on the coffee. A part of me wants to tell her that she was so beautiful I wanted to be her. A part of me wants to say Yes, I’ll be your family, because I don’t have one either. But I can’t. I don’t work that way.

“He’s with you because you look like her,” I say, picturing myself smacking her basket of plastic letters, scattering our talk everywhere. “My mom. You look like her.” I walk off into the woods and wait by the flooded house foundation, kicking at the thin film of ice with the edge of my flip-flops until I hear her drive off in Mrs. Ivory’s car.

After Irene leaves, I go back to the motorhome and dig around under the mattress until I find the ring. The box doesn’t look so new. It’s not just that it’s covered with pocket lint. I didn’t notice before, but if you look close, some of the velvet is rubbed off the top. I open it, take the ring out, and slide it on my finger, stacked on top of the promise ring Matty gave me. It’s a little loose, but it almost fits.

The diamond is big like a tooth, and glows like there’s a light inside of it. Round, but not quite perfect, with a tiny black dot in the center where the bottom is cut off, where it doesn’t come to a point. It’s a miner’s cut. The words are just there in my brain. I know it’s a miner’s cut and then I realize that I know this ring. I remember twisting it around on her finger while she held me in her lap. I remember this ring and her hair falling, so long over her shoulders, I had to brush it out of my face. Her hair had sun streaks of gold and copper and the ring was platinum. Everything sparkled. I take it off my finger and read the tiny letters of the inscription.

When my father was twenty or so, he played guitar at a coffeehouse in Syracuse if he was between carpentry jobs. He’d play for a free meal and whatever people would put in his tip jar. “You can’t be proud when people will feed you,” he’d say. They both told me the story when they were together. They each had their own part, like it was a play, but he’d never tell any of it after she left, so I don’t remember everything. I wish I did.