I just really need it to be a love story.

He'll never meet you," I say. It's a hard truth, carrying within it grief and joy. Jo opens her eyes, doesn't lift her head as she watches me. She's constantly taking in my face and tone, noticing everything about me. When I start to drift away, her tail thumps against the couch cushion, like a drumbeat, a heartbeat, a rhythm of grounding. You're here, she says. You're here. You're here.

So when my mother asks me to forgive her, I say, "Of course I do."I don't tell her again that she couldn't have stopped it, that it wasn't her fault and that she didn't deserve it. I swallow those words instead. Maybe somewhere deep in my belly, they'll take root and grow.

I don't remember, not exactly. So many of my memories from back then are shadowy, incomplete. I need him to fill in the gaps, though sometimes the girl he describes sounds like a stranger.