terrified, and alone. She had asked to see him. The doctor said it was better not to. She had asked again the next day. A nurse told her the necessary arrangements had already been made.
Grief had taught Evelyn not to ask too many questions after that. Grief made a person grateful for whatever was still breathing.
But now her daughter was staring at a little boy in a bus station and claiming he had slept beside her before birth.
“Ava,” Evelyn whispered, “we’re leaving.”
Ava pulled her hand free.
It happened so quickly that Evelyn did not catch her. One second Ava stood beside her. The next, she was running across the wet tile floor, her red rain boots flashing beneath her coat.
“Ava!”
The boy looked up.
For one suspended moment, he and Ava simply stared at each other.
The older woman straightened, alarm tightening her face. She stepped in front of the boy, but he gently moved around her. His eyes were not frightened. They were curious, almost relieved.
“You came,” he said.
Ava smiled.
It was not the smile she gave cartoons or birthday cake or playground swings. It was deeper than happiness, older than her face. It was recognition.
“I told you I would,” she said.
Evelyn reached them breathless, her pulse pounding in her ears.
Up close, the resemblance was impossible to dismiss.
The boy had Ava’s gray-green eyes. He had the same cleft in his chin, the same delicate arch to his brows, the same way of pressing his lips together when he was trying to be brave. Then he turned his head slightly, and Evelyn saw it.
A crescent-shaped birthmark just below his left ear.
Ava had the same mark.
Evelyn gripped the strap of her purse until her fingers hurt.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
The boy glanced at the older woman before answering. “Leo.”
“Leo,” Evelyn repeated, and the name felt both foreign and already known.
The woman pushed the shopping cart closer. She was thin, with silver-streaked hair pinned badly under a knit cap. Her coat was too light for the weather. Her hands were red from cold, but when she placed one on Leo’s shoulder, the gesture was fierce.
“He hasn’t done anything,” she said. “He was only helping me.”
“I know.” Evelyn swallowed. “I’m not upset with him.”
The woman studied Evelyn with the suspicion of someone who had learned that official voices often came before loss. “Then why are you looking at him like that?”
Evelyn had no answer that would not sound insane.
Ava took Leo’s hand.
The boy’s face changed instantly. His careful expression broke into wonder.
“Do you hear humming when it rains?” he asked Ava.
Evelyn felt the floor vanish beneath her.
Ava nodded hard. “And in dreams.”
Leo leaned closer, whispering like it was a secret. “I knew you were real.”
The older woman tightened her grip on his shoulder. “Leo, enough.”
But Leo was looking at Evelyn now.
“Are you her mom?”
Evelyn nodded because she could not speak.
He tilted his head. “You feel familiar.”
Something inside Evelyn cracked so quietly no one else heard it.
She wanted to kneel. She wanted to touch his cheek. She wanted to pull both children into her arms and never let the
