“Will Zola be okay?”

“She will,” Francine said. “We won’t let her not be. Joellen is with her. I’ll keep track of her—you can help me. She’s with her grandma, her family is fighting for her. She isn’t alone.”

My heart sped up. “Francine.”

“Yes.”

“Do you think it means I’m dead inside that I don’t want to find my mom?”

She looked at me. “Of course not. Where are you getting this garbage?”

“Am I wounded?”

She squinted like she couldn’t see me well. “Wounded? How?”

“Like, am I ruined because I was left alone? Will I ever know how to be a good person who loves other people? Is it too late for me?”

She stayed close beside me. “Oh my,” she said. “Someone has done a number on you. Look at me: No one has any right to tell you how you feel, to feed you such ridiculous lies. You aren’t wounded; you are not broken—you are a human person with human feelings and emotions including sadness and loss, which are perfectly normal and need to be felt, and worked through, not obfuscated by bullshit pseudoscience that some grifter invents to write self-help books and make money off vulnerable people. Repeat after me: People can be dickheads. Go on, say it.”

“People can be dickheads.”

“People can be wonderful.”

“People can be wonderful.”

She smiled.

“That’s it?” I asked.

“Well. Basically. Trust yourself. You know the truth.”

“What does obfuscate mean?”

“To cloud. To confuse. To lie.”

“Francine.”

“Yes, sweetheart.”

“I feel old.”

She sighed. “I know. It’s been a long day.”

“No,” I said. “Old. Like I skipped childhood. Like I’ve already lived a whole life.”

She nodded. “Because you have. You need to rest.”

“I’m worn out. I feel useless.”

“You could never, in a million years, be useless. You are a precious jewel, don’t you know that?”

I could not look at her. “I think I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

I tried to swallow, and forced myself to tell her the truth. “I won’t make it on my own.”

She took some hairpins from her pocket, stuck then in her mouth, and pushed them one by one into her messy, familiar bun. “Twenty years, a hundred or so kids, and I’ve loved them all, but I can tell you I’ve never worried that one wouldn’t be with me the next Christmas. I’m worried now.”

Me too.

“Stay with me,” she said.

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“I’ll be trapped,” I choked out.