Dad, the broken child at the heart of her wept. You can’t be gone. Mama? Please. Please, I need you. She was six years old and cleaved in two. Looking down at her body, she was surprised to see long limbs, broad hips, the swell of breasts. Because at her very core, in every place that mattered, she was still hiding in that pantry, staring through the keyhole at the corpses of her beloved parents. Some fundamental part of her would be anchored there forever.
