I see the photo on a Tuesday.

  Lilia and I are at her apartment and she’s showing me something on her phone, scrolling through pictures from a family thing last month. I’m half listening, comfortable, the easy kind of afternoon we’ve gotten good at.

  And then.

  A woman in the background of one of the photos.

  “Wait,” I say. “Go back.”

  Lilia scrolls back.

  There she is. Full face this time. Laughing at something outside the frame, her hand on the arm of a man beside her. Completely at home in her own life.

  Older. Different hair. But her.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  That’s her. That’s Mama.

  The room tilts very slightly.

  “Who’s that?” I ask. My voice comes out completely normal. I have no idea how.

  “Oh, that’s my mom.” Lilia smiles. “She hates having her picture taken.”

  Her mom.

  The pieces land one after another. The tea in the cupboard. The soup. The two hour drive for a jacket. The sitting outside the door. The birthday cake from scratch, specific flavor, always right.

  She’s been telling me about my mother for six months.

  I look at Lilia’s face. Open. Warm. She has no idea.

  She got the soup, I think. She got the jacket and the tea and the sitting outside the door. She got all of it.

  Something moves in my chest, brief and sharp. Then I look at Lilia again, at how she said she’s always just there, at how easy she is in her own life, at how she has never once talked about her mother with anything other than complete uncomplicated love.

  She didn’t take it. It wasn’t taken from me. It just. Went somewhere else.

  And it went somewhere good.

  I hold onto that.

  “She looks nice,” I say.

  “She’s the best.” Lilia locks her phone. “Okay so what I was saying—”

  I listen. I respond. My hands are still on my knees.

  Inside I am holding something very carefully so it doesn’t break.