“Gone. Without a warning or a goodbye—certainly with no explanation, although, with the passage of time, Laurel came to realize that no explanation would have sufficed or made her feel the loss any less deeply. A knife had been plunged into her chest, the blade dragged across her heart, scarring it forever. There was no cure for being abandoned, then, later, ever. A mother’s rejection was worse than her death. At least in death there was a body to mourn, an incomparable love lost, which later, in the fullness of time, was to be treasured. Abandonment was a darkened house, an empty room, a terrible certainty that if only she had done something different—anything—her mother would still be here, her presence felt, the song of her voice like the warmth of a summer sun. Now only winter, eternal winter.”