“Alicia will be loved,” I said, at last. I hadn’t wanted to say it, but she’d pushed me. She knew what she was digging for and I had said it and now it floated in the room between us like a big black cloud of shame. It was so thick, I couldn’t see through it. “Isn’t Plum loved?” she asked. I told her that my parents loved me, but I wanted more than that.
