She settled in her chair and began to write in a careful hand: “Angela was a lovely person, and I was so sad to hear of her—” Mina stopped. Passing? She hated the euphemism. But death felt cruel somehow, though it was perfectly accurate. Not that it mattered. She remembered she’d barely read the condolence cards that she’d received after her Henry and later Annabelle died. Just receiving them had been a comfort.

She finished writing the note, then licked and sealed the flap.

Mina had been to Angela Quintanilla’s home a few times over the years. As she recalled, it was a few blocks up along the water. She could drive, but it would do her good to walk. She tried to take a brisk walk every day, even if it was only to the store and back.

She changed into comfortable shoes and put on her car coat. As she started up the street, on past Sandra Ferrante’s forlorn-looking house, she remembered from the obituary that Angela’s funeral was at St. Andrews. Annabelle’s little memorial service had been held there, too. The turnout had been respectable but sparse. When you died old, not many people who really knew you were left. Mina had been surprised when her new neighbor, that Frank Cutler, had shown up. Though he’d been nice enough, she doubted if he could have picked Annabelle out of an old lady lineup.

After two blocks, Mina paused to rest for a few moments and button her coat. With the sun low it had turned chilly. She’d forgotten how far up Angela’s house was. As she continued walking, she wondered whether the house would go on the market. It was a sweet bungalow with white shingles and candy-apple trim, though it probably needed work. She hoped it would be bought by someone who appreciated its quirky charm. Who’d love the view and want to protect the marsh.

She paused to catch her breath again a half block farther along in front of an empty lot that she didn’t remember being there. She turned up her collar. It didn’t seem possible that Angela’s house was this far away. Was it?

Sure enough, when she turned to look behind her, there was Angela’s house. No wonder she’d missed it. One of the front windows was cracked. Another had a hole in it. Battered asphalt roof shingles littered the ground, and what might once have been chrysanthemums in window boxes were nothing but dried twigs.

A bright yellow sign stuck to the front door read WARNING. Sagging yellow tape strung between sawhorses across the start of a cracked concrete front walkway told passersby to KEEP OUT.

Mina took a quick look around her, raised the tape with her cane, and stepped under it. She marched up to the front door. Where there had once been a doorbell, two wires stuck out of the door frame. She pulled the storm door open and rapped on the front door with her cane. She didn’t expect anyone to answer, but she did want to get a better look.

Wedged inside the storm door, partially hidden by the yellow warning sign taped to the outside, was a smaller official-looking notice, also on bright yellow paper. Across the top it said WORK PERMIT, and below that DEPARTMENT OF BUILDINGS.

Mina plucked it from the door frame and held it close so she could read the fine print. It had been issued a few days ago, Thursday, May 16. That had been the day after Angela died.

Mina felt a chill when she read what was checked off under DESCRIPTION OF WORK.

Demolition and removal.

Chapter Fourteen

It was past five when Evie stepped off the bus in front of Bronx Metropolitan Hospital. The building was covered in white brick and, typical of so many big buildings that had gone up in the 1960s, tiered like a wedding cake. A broad cantilevered canopy covered the entrance. A siren flared as an ambulance drove off, then fell silent when the glass door slid shut behind Evie.

She made her way through the crowded lobby to the information desk, where she got her mother’s room number. As she walked to the elevators a pale woman with reddened eyes stumbled past with her cell phone to her ear. Another woman rushed across the lobby, carrying an enormous gift bag and a bunch of pink helium balloons.

Hospitals ushered people in and out, and hosted all manner of crises in between, she thought as she rode a crowded elevator to the eighth floor. But no amount of intellectualizing could ease the anxiety that built in the pit of her stomach the closer she got to her mother’s room.

She exited the elevator onto a hushed floor, the only sound the metal clatter of a hospital cart and the shush of elevator doors closing. Room 8231. Evie stood for a few moments outside the door to her mother’s room.

Brace yourself. Ginger’s words came back to her.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door and stepped inside.

Evie barely recognized her mother. Thin and haggard, she was propped up in the hospital bed nearest to the door. Her once lustrous auburn curls had turned a flat slate gray and stood out from her skull like the puff of a ripe dandelion.

Another patient was sleeping in the bed by the window. Evie drew the curtain between the beds and pulled over a chair.

Her mother seemed to be asleep, too. Her cheeks, flushed with broken blood vessels, gave the illusion of robust health. Her eyes were closed, but the lids trembled as if she were dreaming. One arm was taped to her chest. Her other hand rested on the bedcovers, the nails stained yellow with nicotine. Evie winced at the dark bruising on the back of her hand where an IV line fed into a purple vein.

It’s just a movie. That was what Evie used to tell herself whenever things got ugly, when her mother woke her and Ginger in the middle of the night, transformed into the banshee that she became when she and her father were fighting drunk. On nights like that, Evie and Ginger hid under their beds and tried to sleep. When it was warm enough, they crept outside with their blankets and pillows and slept in the backyard. Or in the car. They’d occasionally take refuge in Mrs. Yetner’s garage.

Evie’s mother had never, ever copped to having a drinking problem. Maybe she didn’t remember her bouts of drunkenness; maybe she simply chose not to. Perhaps pride kept her from admitting, even to herself, that she could behave so monstrously.

What Evie felt now, looking at the much diminished figure in the bed, wasn’t pity, and it certainly wasn’t rage. How could it be? After all, her mother had so utterly defeated herself.

Evie leaned forward, resting her head in her arms on the side of the bed. She felt sad and completely exhausted, and she let those feelings wash over her, barely aware of voices and footsteps from the hall, the snoring of the woman in the other bed, announcements that came over the loudspeakers.

The next thing she felt was a light touch on the side of her head. Her mother was stroking her hair, the same way she did when Evie was a little girl. For a few moments, Evie surrendered to it. Then she raised her head.

Her mother was looking across at her, smiling. “You came.” Those once clear dark brown eyes seemed cloudy. Without another word, her mother pushed herself to a seated position with her good arm and swung her thin legs off the bed. Evie took her mother’s arm and steadied her as she got to her feet and slid her feet into slippers that were sitting by the bed. Evie rolled the IV rack along after as her mother took one shuffling step after another to the bathroom. The thin hospital gown hung loose. Her silhouette was like those starving children she’d seen in photographs, belly distended and arms and legs stick thin. Through the open back of the hospital gown, Evie could see that her mother’s back was mottled with bruises.

Her mother waved off Evie’s offer to come into the bathroom with her. Evie waited outside the door. And waited. And then helped her mother back into bed.