“I didn’t know she existed. A sister.” She strode to the table, sat on the edge of a chair, then immediately stood again. “The letter was from her. She gave it to my old neighbor, hoping that Mary would be able to get in touch with me and pass it along.”

“Did she say anything about herself?”

“You won’t believe it.”

Maggie slept poorly. She couldn’t stop thinking about Jane’s email—Jane’s challenge. In the morning, she hauled herself out of bed, searched for her cardigan in the tangle of clothes on the floor, and focused on Linnie’s happier news about her half sister.

Danielle Pinsky was thirteen years older than Linnie. She’d been adopted at birth to become the only child of Adam and Rael Pinsky of Syracuse and was now a surgeon at Syracuse Hillside Hospital. Her research into her origins had led her to Linnie’s old neighborhood, the last place her birth father had lived. There, thanks to Mary Tate, she’d learned about Linnie. She hoped to meet her and gave her email address and phone number, so Linnie could contact her.

“Do you want to meet her?” Maggie had asked.

“I—I think I do,” Linnie had stammered. “But not by myself.”

“I’ll go with you,” she’d offered, hearing in her own words an unintentional echo of Jane’s I’ll go back if you go back.

Now, giving up on finding her cardigan, she grabbed her hoodie instead.

On her way downstairs for a cup of coffee, she heard a commotion: the rev of an engine, Wren shouting a greeting from the porch, the thud of a closed door, and voices in the driveway. Maggie reached the kitchen at the same time the back door opened. “Mom?”

“Honey.” Wild-haired, red-eyed, her mother hurried across the room and pulled Maggie into a choking embrace.

Maggie drew back. “What’s going on? You look … upset.” She looked like hell.

Mom self-consciously smoothed her hair.

Maggie checked her pocket and found a hairband. “Here.”

“Thanks.” She drew the disaster into a ponytail. Then her hands collapsed at her sides, and she sighed, so heavily her body seemed to shrink a little from the exhalation.

Wren passed her a cup of coffee.

Without meeting her sister’s eyes, Mom accepted it with another murmured thanks.

It clearly wasn’t reconciliation with Wren that had brought Mom here so early. Maggie glanced at the time on the microwave. Ten o’clock. Jesus. “You must have left home in the middle of the night.”

“I wasn’t sleeping anyway. I texted Janice to let her know I didn’t feel well enough to go to work, which is true”—she paused to glare, as if daring anyone to suggest otherwise—“then I left.”

A fear seized Maggie. “Is Dad okay?”

Mom brushed a hand across her eyes. “He’s fine.”