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necessarily,” I said, backpedaling. “What I meant is, you’ll get it when the time is right for you. The funny thing about change is that it can happen quickly. You wait for it, and then it happens and you can’t believe how fast . . .”
    She was staring out the window again. I’d lost her.
    I hit the main thoroughfare and nudged the gas. Maura sighed and opened the window, her small hand snaking out into the evening air. She turned her palm to the side, letting the breeze slap against it, testing its power. Growing bolder, she tilted her head and let the wind assail her hair.
    It was happening. Not as fast as she would like or as slowly as I would, but Maura, the first baby I’d held for more than a few minutes, the child who shared my reddish-brown hair and hazel eyes, and the teenager whose still-flat chest and delicate, birdlike bones deluded me into thinking she viewed womanhood like one of the hand-me-down paperbacks gathering dust on the top of her bookshelf—something she’d promise to tackle eventually, and then promptly ignore—was growing up.
    We turned into the parking lot. Maura tugged her heavy backpack onto her lap, frowning at its weight.
    I wanted to carry it for her. I wanted to carry her , folding my body around her precious one, a shield against all the possible evils in the world. I wanted to hire armed guards to patrol her perimeter. I wanted a safety camera mounted on her locker. I wanted background checks on any boy who dared glance her way. I wanted to cry her tears, fight her battles, destroy anyone who hurt her, annihilate all the obstacles that were surely to drop like boulders onto her life path.
    “Roll up the window,” I said instead.
    She huffed a breath. “You don’t have to say it like that .”

    The library, an impressively modern building, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a chandeliered foyer, represented one of the many reasons why Carly and Donal had stretched themselves wafer thin to live in the suburbs. It boasted top-of-the-line computers, free Wi-Fi, and a labyrinthine lower level housing an assortment of conference rooms, an art gallery, and a small but high-tech screening theater.
    We entered on the main level, fiction, and Maura picked up speed as we passed a carefully arranged display of new releases. “He’s here!” she shouted and hurried off toward the rows of study carrels before the librarian could shush her.
    I hadn’t given much thought to Maura’s tutor, assuming Carly’d gone ahead with her plan to hire a high school girl, so I was completely unprepared for the man who stood next to my niece, smiling amiably. “You must be Carly’s sister. Nice to meet you.”
    “Yes. I—y-yes,” I stammered. Maura looked at me strangely.
    The man was in his late twenties, tall, with lank dark hair tied back with a cord, clear blue eyes, and finely drawn, almost feminine, features. His gentlemanly Southern accent made me think of Rhett Butler and mint juleps, but then I noticed his teeth, nicotine-stained and crooked, and his neck, a ring of dirt, faint and shadowy, circling it. His jeans were worn thin in spots, greasy in others, and his T-shirt hung loose. He clutched a duffel bag that had seen better days, and didn’t put it down to shake my hand.
    “We’ll be over there,” he said, tilting his head toward a spot—thankfully—in the middle of the room. “One hour, okay? I don’t start the clock until we get settled.”
    “Uh-huh,” I managed to respond, but they’d already moved away.
    Keeping them in my sight line, I began weaving through the stacks until I found a space that afforded a view of the main library while hiding the fact that I’d taken out my cell phone. I crouched down and cupped my hand over the mouthpiece.
    “You need to start talking to me again,” I told Carly as soon as she picked up.
    “I’m thinking about you,” she said. “I need to do that before I can talk to you.”
    “Fine, but did you know your daughter is