I sat down across from her and took a napkin from the stack. The kitchen rug felt cold beneath my feet. The grocery bill from the night before lay on the edge of the table, thirty-four dollars for the extra sugar and butter Piper had requested for the pre-wedding dinner.
“Dad,” Shannon said.
She did not look up from the napkin she was creasing with her thumb.
“Do you think she still knows what my voice sounds like?”
I stopped my hands, the paper napkin half-folded in my fingers. “She remembers, Shannon.”
“But I was only a baby when she left,” she whispered. “How can she remember someone she hasn’t seen since they were small?”
“Mothers don’t forget their children,” I said, though the words felt hollow in my mouth as I thought of the white box in the closet.
“Lucille says she saw a picture of her online,” Shannon said, her fingers twisting the blue beads faster now. “She had a big house in Chicago with a gated driveway.”
“That doesn’t matter,” I said.
“Is she rich now, Dad?”
