I blinked up at the ceiling, silent. My little sister would always feel that precious agony that lay on the cusp of the painful and the pleasurable: Would Mama reappear one morning and we’d pretend the past decade hadn’t happened at all? Would the decade, in fact, melt into nothing, like so many nightmares had? Or would Tai glimpse her on the street in the night and run and run to pin her down? Would she save Mama herself from the clutches of darkness that had taken her from us, and would Mama cry with relief?

I was sad for my sister then—and so jealous of her. Tai’s brain didn’t betray her by coaxing her into the darker reunion possibilities: Mama scraped empty by difficult years we would never know about; Mama revealing, stone-faced, that her departure had been for the best; Mama coming back only to leave us again. These were the possibilities that fractured my heart—the same ones Katox alluded to today.

I’d told myself Mama killed herself so that she could be in control of her own story. So that I could control her story, and my own feelings of grief.

But today I realized that until Mama is found, I’ll always possess the same kernel Tai did—that warped, proud privilege of believing Mama could be alive. A privilege I buried deep (so deep Tai could not see it) but held so close without thinking about it. A thorned privilege blooming and unfurling now, with the suggestion she might be within reach.

If she left White Fox for us, maybe she wants us to find her.

Or she wants Tai to find her, a small voice whispers back, in my head.

But Tai needs me.

I look at the clock on my phone, as Tai drifts to sleep on my shoulder: Less than twelve hours of sleeplessness to go.

It’s only when I map Daria’s address again and cross-reference it with my notes that I realize: Daria Grendl has arranged to meet us on Limatra’s old red-light street, the same stretch where White Fox is held captive, in that foul fairy tale of a script.

The old-fashioned row houses of the red-light street look like wax cottages left in the sun too long. They are made of painted wood, but on this foggy morning, they look especially soft and rotted. They must have once been quaint businesses, ten or more years ago—I remember this being called the “French quarter”—but everything is shuttered and dust-ridden now. Only a couple of buildings wink at us from the road, low lamplight inside their windows. Even Tai feels no urge to drape herself over the bannister of the adjacent canal for pictures—her nose just wrinkles at the faint smell of old fish, while I check the addresses of each house.