My voice began trembling.
“And then I heard you discussing how long you could keep something from me.”
“So no, Robert. Nobody is leaving until someone tells me the truth.”
He looked miserable.
The woman looked even worse.
I prepared myself for whatever came next.
Then she said,
“I’m Claire’s daughter.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“What?”
“My mother was Claire.”
The alley seemed to move beneath my feet.
Claire.
My younger sister.
My only sibling.
Dead for twenty-three years.
I finally looked properly at the young woman.
Until then, I had only seen the blue hair.
Now I saw her face.
The narrow chin.
The slight upward tilt at the corners of her eyes.
A face I had known almost my entire childhood.
Claire’s face.
Claire’s eyes.
“Oh my God.”
The woman swallowed.
“My name is Amelia.”
Of course.
I knew that name.
The last time I had seen Amelia, she was seven.
