leave the mouth. They keep living inside children, shaping the way they see themselves.
I wanted to tear those words out of them.
Instead, I held still.
“We don’t know the whole story yet,” I said. “But we know one thing for sure.”
Lily’s eyes searched mine.
“What Claire said may not be true.”
Owen looked down at Captain. His brow folded in confusion, then pain, then something smaller and more fragile.
“Then why didn’t Mommy come?”
That question had no safe answer.
Because perhaps Anna could not.
Because perhaps she would not.
Because perhaps everyone in this story had been moving inside a web Evan had discovered too late.
“I don’t know,” I said again. “And I won’t make up an answer.”
Lily nodded slowly, though tears gathered along her lower lashes.
“You don’t lie,” she whispered.
“No.”
Her small chin trembled. “I don’t like not knowing.”
“I don’t
