As she waited, she imagined her mother in a starched nurse’s uniform, striding briskly through the waiting room, stopping to comfort patients—like the elderly woman on the bench by the wall. Ally winced as the woman emitted a long thin bleat of pain. A younger woman, probably her daughter, patted her arm. For a moment, Ally wished she could trade places, wished for the chance to hold her mother’s hand, to whisper in her ear that she loved her.

With a hot rush of guilt, she remembered her mother’s last days and how, as her mother wasted away, five-year-old Ally convinced herself that an impostor lay in her mother’s darkened bedroom, with claws for hands and fluid-filled tubes sprouting like tentacles from her arms. Ally was sure her mother was elsewhere. Perhaps she was on a daring adventure, trekking through jungle or riding camels through desert in some exotic land, or by a rippling river, with the wind catching her hair. Or maybe the explanation was simpler. Maybe she was at the grocery store, pushing a squeaky-wheeled cart laden with flour, sugar, and eggs for the cookies they made every Friday afternoon.

Maybe she’d come home soon. She’d rest her hand on top of Ally’s and help her to guide the whirring mixer round and round the bowl, beating butter and sugar until they were smooth and fluffy. Her mother swiped a finger along the edge of the bowl.

“Tell me, is it ready?” her mother asked, offering a snow-topped index finger. “Is it mixed enough?”

Sweet cream dissolved on her tongue. Ally nodded with delight. After cracking eggs and sifting pale clouds of flour, they put the rolled dough in the fridge. As her mother washed up, Ally hopped impatiently from foot to foot and fiddled with the cookie cutters. Ally was sure there could be no greater satisfaction than the moment she pressed the tin stars through the chilled dough. With her mother by her side, they created a sugared constellation all their own.

Maybe this Friday we’ll make cookies, she’d thought, as she stared at the portrait on the mantel. She sent the young woman in the photo frame silent messages, Please, come home soon. But the woman stayed mum, hand raised, waving for her daughter to join her instead.

One evening, as Ally moped by the mantel in the living room, her dad came in and said that her mother wanted to talk to her. At that moment, a long moan escaped from the sickroom. To Ally’s ears it sounded more animal than human. She grabbed the photo from the mantel, ran upstairs, and threw herself onto her bed. She cried and wailed and refused to come out. Later that night, her mother breathed her last.