She tossed the phone onto the bed and hurried downstairs. Mom and Wren must have had a fight. Could it have been on Thursday? The aunt had mentioned needing to call Maggie’s mother and wanting privacy for the conversation …

The hallway door to the studio was closed. Wren had made it clear she couldn’t be interrupted, but Maggie entered anyway. This was an emergency.

Just past the threshold, however, she froze. Another person, somewhere deeper in the studio, was crying.

Wren was not a crier, but who else could this sadness belong to? Maggie hesitated, torn between checking on her aunt and leaving her in peace and disturbed that the two women she was closest to were falling apart at the same time.

Finally, she stepped back and softly closed the door. She’d leave the aunt alone for now and try talking to her later.

Dissatisfied with this compromise, she wandered aimlessly and ended up in the kitchen.

On the counter, a note was next to Wren’s keys. Recognizing the aunt’s handwriting, she picked up the square of paper. Soup’s in the fridge. Take the truck tonight. Have fun at your book club meeting. The sculpture is all but done. The hardest part’s over. I’ll see you in the morning.

Maggie looked around the kitchen. “What the hell is going on?” she asked. Again. The question had become her mantra. It covered all the bases—Jane, Mom, Wren, Linnie.

Nothing and no one were making sense.

“I hoped it would turn out differently.” Julia drew her feet up to the reading-nook couch and hugged her knees to her chest. “Kept wishing Johanna would get to go back to the tribe.”

Hope nodded, glum. “The Kiowas were her family.”

“They didn’t want her back,” Ran pointed out.

“You’re right.” Julia sighed. “And isn’t that heartbreaking?”

Ran tapped the cover of the book in her lap and murmured the title aloud: “News of the World.” She kicked back the rocker. “It’s pretty damn bleak.” Her chair filled the lull with a creak, crick, creak, crick …

“What was the name the tribe gave her?” Hope asked, thumbing through the novel.

“Oh—oh, I know this,” Julia said, and lifted her chin off her knee, her forehead wrinkled in concentration. “Let me think. It’s on the tip of my tongue…”

“Colleen?” Ran raised an eyebrow. “Do you remember?”

She shook her head and slipped lower into her corner of the couch.

“Cicada!” Julia declared. Her smile wilted. She rubbed her cheek against her knee and added gloomily, “Then all those annoying white people tried to make her answer to Johanna. The poor girl didn’t even get to keep her name.”

“Yeah. Hmm.” Hope, in the middle of the couch, leaned back and exchanged a speaking glance with Ran. Then she considered Colleen in a sidelong way. “You didn’t read the book, did you?”

“Yes, I did.”