Juno had leaned back on the bench, frowning up at the yellowing sky. “Let me think,” she said. “Ted Bundy!” She looked at Sam, who nodded enthusiastically.

“The Green River killer…what was that fellow’s name? Gary something…”

“Ridgeway,” Sam finished.

“Yes. That’s right.” Juno nodded.

“Yates, and um…yes, there was that one man who was truly evil. Targeting children—just disgusting. Dodd,” she ended with a smack of her lips.

“My parents freak out when they see me looking at that stuff online.”

“Well, do you blame them? If your mom was obsessed with watching violent car crashes every night before bed, wouldn’t you be concerned?”

“My mom is obsessed with a lot of things that concern me.” His face was blank, but she saw the humor in his eyes.

Juno couldn’t help but smile. The kid had a sort of wry adult sense of humor.

“Moms are obsessed with mom things. Kids are obsessed with kid things. Nothing wrong with having different interests and loving each other the same.”

Juno was surprised at how easily she slipped into the counseling role after all these years. She was also surprised at how flat her words sounded.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m not even their kid.”

“Maybe you’re not,” Juno said it casually, her tone light. Wasn’t there a time in every adolescent’s life when they convinced themselves they were adopted?

Sam is a special boy, Juno thought to herself now as she stood in the doorway to the bathroom, her gaze sliding over the bottles of perfume and lotion that sat on the subway tile next to the bathtub. She completely avoided her own reflection, already knowing what she would see and not wanting to see it—the raw, red butterfly mark across her nose and cheeks. She would see the puffy, jaundiced eyes, and she would see skin mottled like a duck egg.

She slipped the light switch on and stepped inside. She shuffled through the door, her back still stiff from the way she’d slept last night, to the sink where glass bottles were arranged around a silver tray. Eucalyptus, tea tree oil, jasmine. Juno chose from the rows and carried them over to the tub. This was her favorite part of the day, when she had time to let the water ease the pain from her body. She let the water rise as high as it could, and then, lowering herself into the water, she made the sounds a very old, very tired woman made. She tried not to look down at herself as she sank to the bottom of the tub, though she caught flashes of bony thighs, the skin so vellum-thin she averted her eyes.