“Oh, that.” Her shoulders fall back, and her eyes flatten. She’s like a dog shaking off a coat full of snow. “After I graduated. They closed a few years after I graduated.”

My waffle breakfast is a tumult in my stomach, and my fingers tighten around my fork. The skin between my eyes goes cold, as if the kiss from my dream last night has left an invisible scar I can still feel. “Why?”

“Not sure,” she says too quickly, which is how I know she’s lying. She shrugs as if it’s not important. “Just one of those things.”

But it’s not just one of those things. Everything inside me is screaming that it’s anything but one of those things. The dream in the cathedral from last night feels more ominous now, like a premonition of sorts. But premonitions are for the future, and this school is in my mom’s past.

“Well, what was it like going to private school before it closed? Was it just girls?”

“In our building, yes. The boys’ building was next door, but we shared the campus. I told you, it was strict. Boring, really. I’m sure your high school was much better.”

“Did you have a boyfriend?” She was almost always willing to talk about men, except when it came to my dad. But I think of the picture of the petal-white baby, so still in her arms. Who was the father? Surely a boy at the school next door.

She looks away, but not fast enough for me to miss the grimace that crosses her face. “No,” she says simply. “Edna never let me date.”

I don’t doubt that, but it leaves a gaping hole where said father should be. “What was it called?”

She looks confused. “What?”

Earth to Mary. Were we in the same conversation? “Your school?”

She pauses, as if deliberating. “Our Lady of Infinite Sorrows.”

XIV.