That’s all overshadowed by a storm cloud electric with rage—full of confusion, of all-consuming fear, of the nagging suspicion that there’s so much more we don’t know. Why leave this letter upending our understanding of Mama with this … thing, when he could have called us and told us himself? If he privately entertained the idea she might be alive, why say nothing when I claimed she was gone for good?

Who is this man who claims to love us as long as a single spark of consciousness allows?

All I know is I wish he were here now so I could scream these questions at him, though I know I would break down in tears the moment I smelled his papery skin.

“This is ridiculous,” I whisper to myself, head throbbing, hands blue with cold, as I lead my sister into the hallway and shut the door. As if not to disturb him. “We tell no one about this, Tai. Not a soul.”

Tai swirls to face me, blue eyes charged. “I need to tell Saxim. And Teddy and Marion, at least—”

I grip her by the arm. “No one, Tai. He gave us nothing real to go off of, no one to trust but Mina—”

“He’s gone, Manon. Cut him some slack. And you’re missing the point. He said she’s living on Viloxin. She’s out there.”

“And gave us what proof?”

Her hands clench into fists. “He saw her. And Dad never lied.”

I scoff. He could have been hallucinating on meds when he saw her. He could have been dreaming. She saw the tabloid headlines just like me: Sick, Paranoid, and Irresponsible. That’s why we can’t tell a soul. No matter that he sounded sharp as ever in his letter. I’m picking at my hangnail—a bad habit, like the lip biting. But it reminds me I’m in control. Besides writing, it’s the little things like this that keep the fizzy pennies of anxiety at bay.