The Book Club’s Daughter

When we started the book club, Clarissa was 13. We remembered waving hello when she got home from piano practice, or sitting as a fake audience while she rehearsed her part for the school play. We went home and told our daughters to be more like Noreen’s girl, to study her yearbook picture and follow her Bath & Body Works scent through the halls.

But then, she turned 18. Noreen showed up to book club raw from their latest battle—Noreen begging Clarissa to put on some lipstick before a violin recital, Clarissa throwing the lipstick in the toilet, Noreen accusing Clarissa of entitlement and insolence, Clarissa using words like “fascist”—and soon enough, Noreen watched her daughter snatch her vegan yogurts out of the fridge and stuff a backpack of belongings.

She said she was staying with a friend from the debate team for a few days. She was 18, she said. She could do as she liked.

She can’t live with some random friend, McKenna texted. She’d messaged some of us earlier, on a secret group chat we’d created without Noreen, back when the fights started getting worse.

Brielle knew Clarissa’s friend and the house in question, because she worked in real estate in that same subdivision. Such a gossip-rich career—none of us had appreciated that fact about Brielle until this exact moment.

My office window looks out toward their front door, she texted. I’ve seen Noreen’s car drive by every single night. :(

We didn’t know how to respond to the frownie face. We pictured Noreen driving around a half-constructed subdivision on the other side of town. We knew she was watching the different bedroom lights turn on and off, checking to make sure Clarissa was home, in another home.

Is she even going to finish school? McKenna texted. These are the questions we need to ask Noreen.

But not a single one of us had the balls—“ovaries,” Clarissa would have corrected—to ask the questions.

In the days after Clarissa left, we sat in Noreen’s child-empty house. No one bothered to ask if she’d read this month’s book.

McKenna held hope they’d work things out. “This is just mothers and daughters,” she told us. “Who hasn’t wanted to call the cops on their own daughter? Or on their own mother, for that matter?”

We agreed. They needed time.

⌂⌂⌂

Wednesday night was book club night. The Wednesdays came slowly now, at this stage of our lives. We were freed from carpool but saddled with lengthening evenings and empty rooms—Noreen’s all the emptier.

“How are you doing?” McKenna finally asked. “How is—how is the Clarissa situation?”

Noreen walked around her living room, pouring wine and fiddling with the stereo volume. She seemed prepared for our line of inquiry. “She’s 18 now,” she said. Her voice sounded simultaneously familiar and robotic, like the old Noreen calling in from some faulty landline. “There’s nothing I can do but wait for her to come home.”

“You could go to this friend’s parents?” Alison jumped in. “You could tell them how

Clarissa left, how you two had a fight—”

“She’s an adult,” Noreen said.

“Tell them she needs to come home—”

“Tell them you’d do the same—”

“Tell them that means she’s still a kid—”

Noreen’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Legally, she’s an adult,” she said. “There’s nothing I can do.”

“Just wait,” Brielle said soothingly. “She’ll come home.” We took some sips from our too-full wine glasses. Alison tapped her copy of The Pilot’s Wife on the edge of the coffee table.

Paige patted Noreen’s shoulders and allowed herself a long sigh. She pulled the book out of her purse and dutifully flipped until she found the section labeled “Book Club Guide.”

“Question 1,” she read in a clear voice, “‘What does it mean to go on a journey? Share a time you’ve taken a journey. Where did it begin, and how did it end?’”

⌂⌂⌂

After that, we noticed Noreen’s enthusiasm for book club dim like an end-of-credits scroll. On the email thread where we deliberated meeting times and book picks, she added nothing. Not a single laughing emoji, plus sign or pulsing pink heart.

Then, Noreeen skipped our discussion of The Architect’s Lover. The next month, she bailed on the The Old Murderer’s Mother gathering.

Before Clarissa left home, Noreen always showed up for book club. We’d set aside these monthly meetings as our periodic friend catch-ups, sure, but even more importantly, we valued them as sacred brain time, away from the crush of work schedules and kids’ year-round sports calendars.

But then, after Clarissa left, Noreen had no child at home to plan around, and she remained the only one of us without a husband to tend to, too.

Those of us hostessing always planned for her presence with extra snacks, a spare can of Diet Coke. But soon enough, we stopped looking for her car to pull into the driveway on the third Wednesday of the month. We carried the same orphaned bottle of Whispering Angel rosé, taking it from one house to the next.

⌂⌂⌂

Weeks later, we were still talking about Noreen as though she’d come back.

Even when we didn’t say her name out loud, the thought of her smoldered quietly.

“We can’t sit around tapas restaurants just waiting for Noreen to blow in,” Alison said.

“We’re not eating tapas,” Brielle said. “You keep calling it tapas. This is a Korean restaurant.”

We sat crowded into one U-shaped booth. Never did we feel more aware of the spread of our thighs than when they pooled closer to someone else’s, all of us sinking deeper into the cracked red leather banquette.

“Have faith in her,” McKenna said. She poked at a wet dumpling until its insides gushed from the doughy seam. “Trust she’s reading them.”

“You mean reading the books or reading the emails?” Brielle asked.

“The emails, Brielle!” McKenna said. Her lips shone with hot dumpling steam. “Who gives a damn about reading the books?”

The server brought a large ceramic plate of kimchi to the table. “I don’t like—red foods,” Alison said. She stared warily at the other small plates listed on the menu.

“If you don’t try kimchi, you’ll have read Pachinko for nothing,” McKenna said.

But before we’d even set foot in the restaurant, the Noreen discussion felt on the verge of crackling into open flames. After weeks of making excuses for her, the big questions crowded in: What kind of person started the club and then never showed up again? Who was allowed to leave the book club anyway? And—most importantly—which of us would keep it going?

In truth, none of us felt like opening the book anymore. We tried talking about our delinquent sisters or our annoying husbands, but mostly we pushed the food around our plates.

“Anyone watch any good TV lately?” Brielle tried.

McKenna shrugged. Alison dutifully dropped a spoonful of kimchi onto her plate.

“Tom and I are watching Out in the Wilderness,” Brielle went on. “Anyone else? They take 10 people, and they drop them in the tundra or the desert or somewhere—”

Alison perked up. “Sort of like Eat Pray Love? Or the one where she hiked the Pacific Coast Trail?”

“Well, no. It’s not a vacation, it’s like, a survivalist exercise? They have no supplies, like none at all, just what the land provides, and they have to—”

Paige crumpled up her napkin. “Great, Brielle. Thank you. But come on—do we want to read The Archduke’s Sister for next month or not?

Brielle shrugged her shoulders. “The Goodreads reviews looked OK. You know, ‘palace intrigue.’ ‘Blood ties.’ ‘The love between different generations.’”

“Do you really think a book about ‘blood ties’ and ‘the love between different generations’ is really the best thing for—” McKenna paused. None of us wanted to say Noreen’s name out loud. “Some of us to read right now?”

“I’m just trying to keep the club going, OK?” Paige said, frustration already fraying her girlish voice. “Someone has to.”

Alison took a loud sip and shook her ice cubes in agreement.

“Look, I say we just go back to basics,” Paige said. “Let’s subscribe to the Gwyneth Paltrow reading list or whatever, trade off leading the discussion—”

“Ugh. That’s so —” McKenna searched for the right word. “So blah.”

Paige shrugged her shoulders. She traded glances with Alison: someone has to keep the club going.

We poked idly at the little bowls of bibimbap accoutrement, arranging them back into the semi-circle the waiters had presented so prettily.

“Well, my mom really liked The Ex-Husband’s Widow,” Brielle offered.

McKenna sighed in exasperation.

“Don’t even. I freaking loved that book—” Paige said.

Just then, as though the very mention of The Ex-Husband’s Widow had summoned her from another dimension, a smoky figure swung through the restaurant’s double doors. Her curly black hair looked freshly-cut, and a worn leather jacket hung from the tops of her now-bony shoulders. Her eyes caked in melty makeup.

A handful of us had seen Noreen in passing since she started skipping out on club meetings, but only briefly, just as two hands waving out car windows or two shopping carts wheeling by in nighttime grocery store aisles. But here, we couldn’t help but double-blink our eyes. We were trying to adjust them to the real-life presence of her, at our club, in this restaurant. We knew what she looked like freshly showered and perfumed, and we also knew what she looked like when she’d been crying at night and smoking alone in her car, like now.

“Noreen!” Paige scooted some chairs together, freeing up space for our friend.

At past meetings, this is usually when she would rush to order a glass of wine, say something about the traffic, apologize for us not being able to have it at her place, ruffle through the menu looking for an appetizer platter, flip to her favorite passage in the boo—

Noreen slid next to Alison. “I’m here, I’m here.”

“You’re here!” Alison trilled. The false cheer in her voice comforted us.

“Well. Noreen.” Paige blinked. “How is life, Nor?” She winced involuntarily, showing just the barest start of a crack in her composure. She hurriedly gestured to the waiter for another round of drinks.

Noreen picked at her chipped red nail polish. She glanced at Alison’s drink next to her. “We can share,” Alison said kindly, wiping lipstick off the straw.

We all waited while Noreen took a long sip. She glanced around the table. “Oh,” she said absentmindedly. “I forgot to read the book.”

“It’s OK,” we murmured. “No worries.”

Noreen fiddled with the edge of the plastic menu, tapping out an unfamiliar beat on the table.

“You look—you look good,” Brielle finally tried, her voice shrinking a little at the end of the sentence. She seemed the most shocked of all of us to see the apparition at the end of the table.

McKenna pointed to the platter of dumplings, but Noreen only paused her nail-picking to wave it away. Flakes of red polish decorated her placemat.

“Well, we were talking about what to read for next month,” Alison said, politely looking away as Noreen drained the dregs of her cocktail.

“My vote is for The Ex-Husband’s Wife,” Paige said again.

“It’s The Ex-Husband’s Widow,” Brielle whispered.

McKenna rolled her eyes.

“Don’t be rude,” Paige said.

“You just said you’ve already read that, though,” Brielle said. She crossed her arms in front of her chest.

Paige shrugged. “So what? It’s nice to go on autopilot every now and then.”

“No.” Noreen looked up from the table. “No, Paige, it’s fucking not.”

We jumped a little, less at the noise than at Noreen swearing. Brielle hated swearing, and long ago, we’d all trained it out of ourselves in her presence. She said when she was little, her mom told her that every curse word uttered aloud hit an angel in the heart like a dagger. She grew up riding the bus and listening to the passengers’ swears swirl around her, all the while imagining hundreds of bleeding angels pressing gauze to their red chests.

Some of us looked toward Brielle, involuntarily making murmur-like soothing noises for her, like we did when our kids skinned their knees or our husbands’ teams lost the playoffs. We could see the calculus working its way across Brielle’s face. She’s the one of us who never hides a single thought, feeling or secret. Every inclination, wish and fear writes itself directly on her circular face, round and deep like a golden cake pan. We willed her with all our might to shrug it off. Please, Brielle, we pleaded telepathically, don’t ask about Clarissa. Don’t ask where she is. Say nothing about the constant fights that mushroomed into mother-daughter screaming matches. We saw her face scrunch, probably thinking about the other times we’d heard Noreen swear, like when she was describing the night when Clarissa first threatened to run away. Behind Brielle’s doll-like eyes we could see her remembering the time Noreen found condoms in Clarissa’s top drawer and burst into—

Brielle, don’t ask, we whispered in our minds. Don’t ask.

“And—Clarissa?” she said. “Any news?”

Noreen unwrapped a straw to poke at the remaining ice cubes. She snorted.

“Well, I called up the private investigator you recommended, Paige,” she said. She smiled into the half-empty glass. “That’s where I’m at. I’m paying a bona fide P.I. to tell me where the hell my own daughter is.”

Alison whirled around to Paige. “You just have a private investigator on speed dial?”

“I mean, I knew enough to Google one,” Paige said. “And, you know, once you Google something, it’s all over your Facebook ads.”

We knew.

“I’m sorry, Noreen,” she said. “I just thought—”

“No, no, it’s good,” Noreen said. She paused her nail inspection to chew on an ice cube from Alison’s glass. She went back to picking at the red flakes. “He’s—his name is Andrés, and I think he’s going to be a big help. That’s all I want to say about that.”

“Oh my gosh,” Alison said. “I just realized—this is exactly like that scene from The Old Murderer’s Mother!”

We silently added this to the list of reasons Alison needed to be suspended from the group.

“Give me that kimchi,” Noreen said. McKenna slid the red bowl across the table. “Do you want utensils or—” Brielle began, but Noreen held the dish with two hands and slurped it up in two gulps. Two globs of cabbage dripped down her chin.

We double-checked our own shirt fronts for stains. We watched as she licked the bowl clean and—Brielle actually gasped—burped in satisfaction.

“I think I actually know something I want us to read,” Noreen said. She took Alison’s napkin and delicately patted her lips. “That’s why I came to today’s meeting. I’ve been meaning to suggest some things for a while.”

Noreen looked up to the ceiling, avoiding McKenna’s pointed eye contact. “Like, I haven’t read any of those books Clarissa always wanted me to read.” The table went quiet.

We all looked at our plates, feeling appreciative that we had so many to look at.

“Oh, Noreen,” McKenna finally said. Her “oh, Noreen” conjured what we were all already imagining: the inside of Clarissa’s bedroom, papered with antique library posters. For her 16th birthday, Noreen’s daughter begged her mother to install floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in her little corner of the house, and then she packed them full with these books of hers, all special-anniversary covers and weathered spines she scavenged at yard sales.

“I’ve been pulling things off the shelves,” Noreen said. “You know, she was right, it’s so silly, owning books you haven’t even read.” Her voice sounded rushed, and we thought of her rehearsing these words in the car mirror, maybe even recording it into her phone and playing it back to herself a couple times, which we knew she once did before big work pitches or those long-ago, drawn-out apologies to Clarissa.

Brielle looked around the table, eyes wide. We envisioned Clarissa’s tenth-grade triptych on feminist authors, which she’d created for an AP class and practice-presented to us before one of our book club meetings at Noreen’s house. The presentation devolved into yet another much-predicted Clarissa-Noreen blowout, with Noreen yelling “Can you be a nice, normal girl? Can’t you wear some mascara for crying out loud?” and Clarissa screaming back at top volume: “I’ll die before I succumb to that, you spidery-eyed bitch!” and all of us saying nothing as we closed The Horse Trader’s Son and snuck out through the garage door.

Noreen’s nails drummed on the table. She’d picked her polish clean.

“I’m just offering some suggestions.” She looked around the table. “No autopilot.” We all kept quiet, watching for her next words. She pulled out her phone and opened a crammed Notes app. “I’ve drafted a list of some select titles.”

We envisioned Noreen standing in Clarissa’s bedroom, Noreen copying down names from the carefully-shelved spines, Noreen finally picking up the hair curler after weeks of lank greasiness, all so so she could shape her new hairdo and freshen up her makeup to drive to our meeting here.

Her voice shot up in volume. “And if the club is going to keep going, I’d like for us to at least consider them. At least if I’m going to be a part of this club.”

We waited for someone to speak.

McKenna touched her hand. She said what we all felt: “You’re always a part of the club, Nor.”

Paige waved the waiter over. “Another round of cocktails, please,” she said. She pointed to the side dishes shoved to the end of the table. “And more of everything in these little bowls.”

“Yes,” Brielle said. Her eyes glanced at Noreen’s shirt front. “We really loved—” she waved at the kimchi-stained bowl—“this.” She beamed at Noreen.

⌂⌂⌂

The next book, the next month. The Clarissa pick.

We set our wine glasses on the table and smiled at one another, a little uncertain of how to begin. We held our copies of Frigid Bitch very gently, as though the covers could tear.

“Well, let’s start with the book club guide at the back, then?” Paige tried. “Like we used to—”

“No,” Brielle said, and she flipped through the book pell-mell. “I say let’s crack this—this bitch—wide open.”

“Brielle!” Noreen gasped. Her glee spread throughout the room.

Bitch. Brielle. We couldn't help it—our hearts smiled. Brielle looked at each of us, basking in our surprise and our delight. She twirled her finger in the air, eyes closed, and let fate pick a page.

⌂⌂⌂

We had to hold our next real meeting a week sooner than expected. We’d been reading All the Bad Men One Woman Encounters, and—for the first time in the history of the club—we’d finished the book ahead of schedule.

Paige took off work and told us to come over any time. She’d bought enough cheese and crackers for exactly six people, she said, but had enough wine for 12. She was an accountant, after all.

Noreen showed up in one of Clarissa’s old shirts, a Take Back the Night tee slashed at the neck. We could see her makeup getting darker. She vibrated with her special brand of smoking-alone-in-the-car energy. She had taken to driving late at night, talking on the phone with Andrés while he recapped the day’s investigation.

“God, I feel like I’ve been on edge for days,” McKenna said now. “I keep looking for an ‘off’ switch to this feeling, and it’s just like—not there.”

“You’ve been on edge your whole life, McKenna,” Noreen snapped. “You just didn’t know where the edge was.”

McKenna nodded enthusiastically. Since finishing All the Bad Men One Woman Encounters, we couldn’t help but notice a sudden shift in the tone of her usually bland Facebook posts. She began sharing a lot of strange new memes, some of which we understood and some of which we didn’t, and she didn’t hesitate to hit the block button when a former “friend” replied with questions. She’d stopped wearing three-quarter length sleeves, opting instead to show off the college-era snake tattoo on her bicep.

Noreen looked around the room—looking at us loyal book club members, all of whom, she knew, dutifully went home each night just trying to make something of our few spare hours, turning the channel away from Fox News or pacifying the teenage sons we feared could erupt into angry misogynists at any second. Our toddlers put on cartoons and we allowed our eyelids to close and, secretly, we liked it, because, secretly, we dreamt of disappearing from view entirely. No wonder Brielle liked Out in the Wilderness.

But now, we felt ourselves humming with something darker. We wouldn’t look away when we stripped in the mirror. We forced ourselves to drink it in: “Keep looking. You’re right here.”

⌂⌂⌂

We clutched our Vulnerable Vulvas copies proudly.

McKenna perched on the edge of one of the pink velvet chairs, her knee bouncing a bit, like she’d had one too many espressos.

“OK before anyone asks, I ordered mine on Amazon,” Alison blurted out. “I just—”

“Amazon, Alison?” Noreen sucked in her breath. “Are you for real? Amazon?” She flipped through her copy and we could see them: Clarissa’s handwritten notes studding each page.

We remembered how Clarissa read and re-read that book. She copied out quotes from the book onto protest signs for our town’s sparsely-attended Women’s March. Noreen hadn't driven her there—they’d had another horrific fight the night before. Clarissa called McKenna’s husband instead, and asked if she could get a ride downtown with him when he went to work. She got to the town square so early, hours before the march began. Some of us glimpsed her sitting by the statues, surrounded by her handmade signs, waiting for everything to begin.

⌂⌂⌂

We were staying up later and later each night.

Tearing through the Clarissa books, yes, but also texting with each other, sharing screenshots or messaging highlighted text back and forth.

Paige texted at 4 a.m.

I can’t sleep. I don’t think I’ve slept in days.

Five of us hearted it, already awake.

⌂⌂⌂

We read The Heterosexual Lie next. We’d been slowly making our way through the giant stack of books Noreen first brought down the stairs. Clarissa marked pages with bright purple exclamation marks. Noreen turned pages gently, taking extra care not to smudge them.

She was reading aloud when Tom walked in the door.

“I left the gym early, Bri-Bri,” he called into the living room, talking over Noreen’s voice. “Making great progress on the pull-up bar, though.” This is when we’d expect Brielle to hang his coat, offer him a beer, peck a kiss on his cheek. But she merely stood still, simmering silently at the interruption.

Noreen put down the book and reached for her phone. She held it up in front of her face, performatively ignoring Tom.

“Texting at book club, Noreen? Tsk tsk,” Tom tried, eyes twinkling.

The quiet wrapped around the couch, threatening to slap a hand over Tom’s mouth.

“This is book club, right?” He grinned. “Not ‘Texting Club?’” He waited for a laugh.

Brielle silently topped off everyone’s glasses, even the still-pretty-full ones.

“Yep, did pull-ups today,” he said again. We held the book open in our hands, a mute protest against his presence. The twinkle in his eyes died away. He left the room.

Noreen’s voice picked up right where she left off.

⌂⌂⌂

Alison suggested an off-Clarissa pick. The new sequel to The Architect’s Lover: The Architect’s Bride. Some candy with our vegetables? :) she texted. We removed her from the group message and blocked her number.

⌂⌂⌂

Brielle got on Out in the Wilderness. We didn’t even know she applied. Her kids definitely didn’t know yet. She left in two months. She could bring a backpack and a list of 10 tools from the show’s pre-approved list—that’s all.

“Tom actually cried,” Brielle said. “He didn’t even cry when his dad died.”

We were back at the Korean restaurant. They had a great happy hour special.

“Maybe Tom is just —” McKenna looked to the rest of us for help.

“We’re excited for you,” Paige said. “I hope you’re studying.”

“Studying what?” Brielle said.

“Like, maybe how to saw logs? Make fire?”

Brielle pursed her lips. “Please, Paige. Making fire? Child’s play.”

⌂⌂⌂

The week before Thanksgiving, we took down the dark Pilates leggings we’d all bought for our group workout resolution several years back. We stole our sons’ black hoodies from the wash. Noreen broke out her smokiest makeup palettes to run inky lines around our cheekbones, so our pale faces wouldn’t shine under motion-sensored streetlights.

We’d finished Real Women Have Real Politics two weeks prior, just in time to shower our families with some manufactured holiday cheer. Noreen kept talking about Andrés, the private investigator. He’d promised some new leads, but then—zilch. Radio silence.

“They call it ghosting,” McKenna whispered from the backseat. She and Noreen shared a single seatbelt, scrunched in the back of Paige’s Suburban. “In case you care.”

“I don’t care,” Noreen said. “Right now, I’m getting in the zone.”

Brielle called the county office just to make sure the high school had no custodial caretaking scheduled for Thanksgiving night. She was asking for budgetary reasons, she told the woman on the other end of the line. Surely the high school wouldn’t want to waste the money on a holiday—“Hell no,” the woman rushed. “Can’t get too dirty without the kids inside of it, right?” They laughed staticky laughs and Brielle hung up in victory.

We’re golden, she texted the group.

Once we were zipped into our hoodies and loaded supplies into Brielle’s backpack, we crossed the street to the high school.

The boys had spray-painted a ranking of girls’ names on the wall, with red numbers glowing beside each.

Approaching the first brick wall, Noreen’s face went pale. We waited for her to make the first move, to grab a spray paint bottle in either fist and yell a warrior-mom cry to rival the crack of distant fireworks. This is how we imagined her erupting in that ceramics studio, dragging Clarissa home.

But now, we watched her shrink. We saw Clarissa’s name on the wall, a giant number glowing beside it.

“I’m going to be sick,” Noreen said.

“Go vomit on the track field,” McKenna whispered.

“And be quiet about it,” Paige said, her voice like the slash of a knife.

But Noreen shook her head. “I’m good.” She tapped Brielle on the shoulder. “Open the backpack. I claim green.”

We all stuck out our hands. “Pass the bottle, please.”

We blocked out the boys’ graffiti in long, opaque strips of paint. Our own bizarre blackout poetry—like they’d even know what that was.

⌂⌂⌂

The night before Brielle left for the show, we met at an indie bookstore. Noreen suggested attending the reading—the author of Frigid Bitch was signing copies in celebration of her book’s re-release—and then doing a fancy dinner to toast Brielle’s adventure.

We waited outside for Brielle to arrive. Earlier that day, she texted photos of the giant hiking backpack she’d stuffed with tools we didn’t even know she owned: an LED headlamp, a Leatherman multitool, meters of climbing rope and a long, scary-looking knife.

Saving space in one pocket for whatever book we read next, she texted. I’m going to need it.

As attendees streamed in and out of the bookstore door, we inhaled their scent: patchouli, incense.

“Can we get a group selfie?” Paige said quietly.

“I’d love that,” Noreen said. “But I’ll take it. You have short arms.”

When Brielle turned the corner, we almost didn’t recognize her—face stripped of makeup, her trademark blonde waves shorn close to the head.

“What do you think?” she said shyly. Her fingers ran through her boylike crop. “The Out in the Wilderness team recommended—”

“I love it!” we yelled as one. She looked like a tan-faced pixie, like Peter Pan, like a character from one of our children’s storybooks. “Obsessed!”

The caftaned bookstore owner leaned out the door. “We’ll get started in just a minute, ladies,” she said. “See you inside.”

Noreen held out her hand for Paige’s phone. “Quick—let’s get this photo,” she said.

“Line on up.”

We arranged ourselves around the author poster and squinted our eyes against the setting sun. Noreen leaned back, trying to get her shadow out of the frame.

A petite, jean-jacketed girl stopped by the door. “Want me to take it?” she offered. “I can—wait—”

But Noreen knew the voice before she even looked. Clarissa appeared the same as ever: two dark plaits, shiny combat boots. The scent of Bath & Body Works body wash.

We watched Noreen raise a hand to shield her eyes. “Clarissa. You’re—you’re here?”

“More like ‘You’re here?’” Clarissa said. But she said it with a smile, and our shoulders relaxed. “My friend suggested coming to this talk.” She pointed to a car idling at the curb. A man leaned out the window, made eye contact with Noreen. He held one finger to his lips.

The bookstore owner poked her head out again. “We’re going to get started,” she said. Her voice didn’t sound as kindly this time.

“Hurry, Mom!” Clarissa snatched the phone. “Get in the photo!”

Noreen posed alongside Paige. We yelled “Cheese!” right on Clarissa’s cue.

And suddenly Clarissa was touching her mom on the shoulder. “See you—in there?”

“Yeah,” Noreen managed. “In there.”

“Right on.” Clarissa walked away. We turned to Noreen, our hands reaching for the still-warm spot where Clarissa had touched her.

Noreen’s face twisted with emotion. “Did you see her?” she gasped. “I think—she was even wearing some mascara.”