Earlier, while cradling the porcelain in the tiny bathroom of the east buttress of the church, I’d heard through the thin plywood door all about the major land deal Kori’s brother Kyle had scored. Now, in the receiving line, he looked appropriately somber in his suit, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was going to slip me his business card as he shook my hand. I resisted the urge to lean toward him and whisper in his ear: “Did you know that Kitzler means ‘clitoris’ in German?” and instead simply nodded and moved to the next person in line.

A glaze completely covered Kieren. Kori’d always said she didn’t think she could have survived without Kieren. And I instinctively knew it went both ways. His hand gave mine a limp squeeze. He will never be okay, I thought. Not that I would either. But at least I didn’t have to go home with the rest of the Kitzlers.

I scarcely knew her parents, probably because they scarcely knew their daughter, but I greeted them anyway, because they were next in line and the movement of the line was the only thing that kept me going.

I clasped Mr. Kitzler’s large hands.

“Kori?” His whispered voice snagged. “Kori?”

He turned to his wife and started again with the panicked whispers. “Is that? Kori?”

I wasn’t sure what kinds of antidepressants he was on, but it didn’t help that he’d never seen me with black hair; never known how much I looked like his daughter. I started to move along, unsure of his emotional state and not liking the way he sounded so panicked, but his grip didn’t release. It was like he had one more chance to look at Kori and wasn’t ready to let go.

“Honey, you know Serena. Serena Moore.”

Embarrassed, Mr. K. dropped my hand quickly. And I took the opportunity to move away from him.

“Oh, look! You have one too!” Mrs. K. reached for Baby Maru as I tried to pass by her. I stepped back, holding Maru protectively to my chest. “What is it supposed to be?”

“A baby. A class project,” I said numbly.

“Oh! That’s what it was. Korianne had one with her. We had no idea what it meant. We questioned it for hours—you should have heard some of the ideas we came up with!”

She started laughing. It poured like gasoline on the burning anger inside of me as I imagined their worry over a mysterious sack of flour instead of their own daughter.

I swallowed back anger and accusations. “Do you still have it?” My breath burned in my lungs as I waited. When she eventually nodded, the heat beneath my eyelids receded and the fist my heart had made loosened. “Can I have it?”