I raised my niece on my own — eight years later, she pointed at a woman in the next beach changing cubicle and whispered, “Aunty, look… she has my mark”

her doctor, her bedtime, her entire life is with me. You don’t get to unsettle that just because you finally stopped hiding.”

“I don’t want to take her.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t want to take her,” she said again, quieter. “I want to stop being a ghost.”

That was the first thing she’d said that sounded true.

I glanced toward continue reading …