His voice broke.
“Not like this.”
“You weren’t meant to know yet.”
“Where is she?”
My voice didn’t sound like mine.
“Hannah, listen to me—”
“Where is she?”
He pointed.
Not at the padlock.
Around the side.
“The back,” he said.
“The front’s just for show.”
I ran around the corner of the shed.
There was a second door.
Hidden behind a stack of old apple crates.
No lock.
Just a latch.
I threw it open.
Warm air hit my face.
A space heater glowed orange in the corner.
There was a cot with a quilt on it.
A camp stove.
A cooler.
A folding chair.
Meredith was sitting in it.
Sweatpants.
Reading glasses.
A paperback in her lap.
She stood up so fast the chair fell over.
“Hannah—”
I didn’t look at her.
I was looking at the easel.
It stood under the dusty window where the light came in.
There was a canvas on it.
Purple irises.
Half-finished.
And in front of the easel, on an upside-down crate, sat a little girl.
Brown ponytail.
Paint shirt.
A pink cast on her left wrist.
A paintbrush in her right hand.
Purple to the knuckles.
She turned around.
She saw me.
Her mouth fell open.
“Mom?”
I don’t remember crossing the room.
I remember her weight.
I remember her arms around my neck.
The cast knocking against my ear.
I remember the smell of her hair.
Strawberry.
I remember making a sound I’ve never made before or since.
“You’re here,” I kept saying.
“You’re here.”
“You’re here.”
“I’m here,” she said into my shoulder.
“Mom, you’re squishing me.”
I didn’t let go.
I couldn’t.
I touched her face.
Her cheeks.
Her eyelashes.
A fading yellow bruise on her forehead.
Real.
Warm.
Breathing.
“Did you get my sweater?” she said.
I nodded.
I couldn’t talk.
“I painted the sleeves,” she said.
“So you’d know it was really me.”
“Scout’s been my mailman.”
“He comes every day.”
“Daddy said I couldn’t send anything home.”
“So I didn’t tell him.”
She pointed at the wall behind the cot.
I hadn’t even seen it.
