And I missed Mom. I’d missed Lizzy too, as much as my young heart was capable, but I missed my mother like an adult, with an adult’s heart, and even though I’d always weathered its whispers alone, when she died, I suddenly felt stranded and solitary in a way I’d never felt before. As if a secret part of me had always thought if it grew too loud, if I was in too much danger of doing what it wanted me to do, I could go to my mom and she would make it better. She’d make me not alone; she would make it go away.
