“I didn’t say I had fun.”
“Did you?”
I looked down at my silver shoes.
The straps had left marks across my feet.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I think I did.”
She turned from the sink.
Her eyes shone.
“Then I’m glad.”
I went to bed thinking maybe life had shifted by one small degree.
Not enough for a miracle.
Just enough for morning to look different.
I slept with my makeup still partly on and dreamed of broken glass.
The pounding began at 7:12 a.m.
Not knocking.
Pounding.
The kind that does not ask permission.
I woke with my heart slamming against my ribs. For half a second, I was nine again, smoke burning my throat, someone shouting my name from very far away.
“Mara?” my mother called from downstairs.
Another pound shook the door.
I threw on a sweater over my old T-shirt and hurried down.
My mother opened the door before I reached the bottom step.
The morning light spilled in sharp and cold.
Two police officers stood on our porch.
Behind them was a woman in a beige coat, her blond hair twisted into a smooth knot. Beside her stood a man in a dark suit with a square jaw and eyes like closed doors.
