That joke was particularly bad, even for him. “Hey, Daniel,” Zadie said as she looked around for the event pavilion and saw only an exhibit about local flora.

“I would have woken you, but you looked so comfortable.”

“I don’t usually fall asleep in public, but I didn’t sleep great last night.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m used to people sleeping in weird places. I once found one of my students asleep under the sink hugging a bag of guinea pig food like it was a teddy bear.”

“That’s cute.”

“Oh, it was precious,” he said earnestly. “We did have to call his parents, though, ’cause it turned out he’d been eating the guinea pig food for weeks.”

Not cute. What if her kid ate pet food? Or paste? Do kids still eat paste? she wondered.

“I moved the food to another cabinet, but he’s a smart kid. At recess, I found him hiding out in the tube slide, munching on those pellets like they were candy.” Daniel laughed and sighed fondly. Zadie cringed.

“So how have you been?” he continued. “I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“Oh. Uhh…” Zadie was unprepared for this line of questioning, so she decided to keep it vague. “I’m … good.”

“How’s Dustin?”

Zadie was surprised he remembered her ex’s name. They’d met only once at an awkward run-in at Costco. “He’s, uh … good, too.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Zadie glimpsed the pavilion in the distance. Was it just her, or were they getting farther away?

Everywhere Finn looked, she thought she saw her mother. She stopped in her tracks beside every woman with long auburn hair, every vaguely familiar laugh, every sarcastic remark. Her party had become a hall of mirrors, only instead of her own reflection staring back at her, it was her mom’s.

Finn spotted a group of women huddled together on the deck’s gazebo. She recognized several of them from the halls of her high school, teachers mostly, but there was one woman with her back turned that she couldn’t identify. She wore an anklet similar to the one Finn was currently wearing on her ankle, silver with two tiny charms, an F for Finn and a Z for Zadie. It had been her mother’s. The day Nora disappeared, Finn had found it lying on their driveway. She’d barely taken it off since.

Finn approached the woman, who then looked over her shoulder at her. “Oh, hi, Finn! Congratulations on graduating.” Finn’s heart dipped. It was Mrs. Kirby, the freshman English teacher whom many of the younger students called “Mrs. Coleslaw” for reasons unbeknownst to Finn. Finn could only assume the nickname had originated during one of her regular shifts as cafeteria monitor.

Finn tried to hide her disappointment. “Thanks, Mrs. Kirby.”

“Do you know what you’re going to study in college yet?”