were loved less than someone else. She had been an elementary school art teacher, the sort of woman who remembered the names of every child’s imaginary friends. When Amara felt embarrassed by a failed math test, Camille made hot chocolate. When Zoey, still a toddler, cried through a thunderstorm, Camille sat on the floor with her until the rain ended.
Then Camille became ill. Her decline had been fast enough to leave the family stunned and slow enough to make them hope for a different ending. She died when Amara was nine and Zoey was two. For months afterward, their home looked exactly as she had left it. A blue ceramic bowl sat on the kitchen counter. A yellow raincoat hung behind the mudroom door. The little garden along the back fence still held the rosemary she had planted because she said every good home should smell like something growing.
Julian had loved his wife, but he had never learned to manage grief while being the only parent in the room. He threw himself into work, convincing himself that long hours were a form of devotion. His architectural firm was expanding, and the money he earned meant the girls would be safe. At least, that was how he explained the late meetings, the out-of-town projects, and the evenings when he arrived home after both daughters were asleep.
Amara became the keeper of everything that remained. She remembered which songs Camille sang when Zoey was sick. She knew where the school pictures were stored and which mug had belonged to their mother. She also learned to braid Zoey’s hair badly, then patiently unbraid it and try again. Adults praised her for being mature, never stopping to ask what it cost a child to become useful before she was ready.
Vanessa entered their lives at a charity dinner nearly two years after Camille’s death. She worked in public relations, dressed beautifully, and possessed the reassuring confidence of someone who could make a problem disappear simply by picking up a phone. She listened when Julian talked about struggling to keep the household running. She remembered Zoey’s birthday and brought Amara a journal with her initials embossed on the cover. She told Julian that his daughters deserved more laughter and less uncertainty.