There’s the Noni whose emotions and need overwhelm her, and there’s the Noni who acknowledges those emotions as she tries to be as powerful and focused as a human can be. The Noni who believes she deserves to feel content and loved more hours than not, and who knows she can work toward loving herself more every day.

There’s Mama, writing a dark fairy tale about loneliness and its antidote, human kindness; and Mama, the sixteen year old prostitute with that awful ice-blond wig, lost in her quest for redemption with a tire iron. There’s Mama, her brand of hope spreading through graduates of the institute—and sprinkled into Teddy’s strange work the world over—and Mama, the woman who crouched on the bathroom floor beside me, telling me the story of a fox, because it was the closest thing to truth that she could speak while scrabbling up out of a deep well of hopelessness and despair.

Believing she could return is our private tragedy. But it is also a testament to how alive and capable we believed her to be when she was with us: A miracle worker. Our runaway Foix.

Hi, Mama, I think, setting the bouquet of Dad’s foxgloves on top of the graciously imperfect stone—a place we’ll return to, year after year, for each other. We see you, too.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

EXT. MAGICAL FOREST GARDEN — NIGHT

In the forest garden: whispering groups of hydrangeas, ropes of fragrant jasmine, gardenias releasing their midnight scent on the wind. A giant, ancient maple tree in the center.

A cheerful creature with long seaweedy hair steps out of a hollow in the tree’s trunk. She smiles at you, the hem of her emerald-green skirt in hand. It might be made from the maple’s spring leaves, but that wouldn’t make sense, would it?

CREATURE

Want to know who brought WHITE FOX to life?

Is she talking to you? You point to your chest, inquiring, and the figure beckons for you to follow her toward the tree.

You follow. Delicately carved into its magnificent bark are the following names:

Sarah Bedingfield, Erin Stein, Kelsey Marrujo, Katie Quinn, Natalie Sousa, Molly Ellis, Mariel Dawson, Allison Verost, Camille Kellogg, Jordin Streeter, Hayley Jozwiak, Stacey Sakal, Carolyn Bull, Katy Robitzski, Raymond Ernesto Colón.

CLR, EAF, WOF, AJF, RCR, MHR, WSR, HDR.

And, well … to your surprise, your name is there, too.

You and the creature sit together beneath the tree. Someone has laid out buckwheat tea, sea urchin toasties, and scones spread with butter and mulberry jam. You both dig in. As you eat, the creature begins to glow.

CREATURE