“I’m sure she’s watching us,” Annabel said softly.

“While I would be happy to have met our mother, it was the three of you who raised me,” Josie said. “I always felt safe and loved. And”—she was crying now, tears sliding down onto Cecily’s blanket—“I can never thank you enough. Because somehow I ended up with everything I most wanted in the world. I don’t think anyone’s ever been as happy as I am at this moment.”

Cecily was encased in a circle of arms, tears, and hugs. She peered about blearily, and then realized that she wasn’t happy. And if she wasn’t happy, then why were all these people laughing, acting as if the world was a perfect place? Something was wrong…Something was terribly wrong. And no one had noticed.

She filled her lungs with a sense of righteous indignation.

She aimed to teach a lesson that Josie and Mayne, like every new set of parents, had yet to learn. When one turns over one’s life to a small scrap of a tyrant, pure happiness is fleeting.

And yet its deeper cousin, joy, stays with you for life.