Mara lived in a small yellow house with a vegetable garden and a handmade sign reading Welcome To Planet Sadie.
Inside, cardboard constellations covered the ceiling, and a bookshelf held science magazines beside watercolor paintings and neatly stacked school notebooks.
I had expected a conversation about the past, but the house confronted me with a full childhood I had never witnessed.
A wheelchair stood folded near the stairs, and Mara explained that Sadie used different mobility aids when fatigue or pain demanded them.
She spoke matter-of-factly, making it clear that those objects were practical tools rather than the defining features of her daughter.
I appreciated that simple correction to the frightened picture Julian had painted of a child whose life was supposedly ruined.
Sadie appeared halfway down the stairs wearing bright green socks, holding a stuffed owl, and studying me with cautious brown eyes.
She looked like Julian around the eyes, although her raised eyebrows reminded me painfully of my own reflection in childhood photographs.
