“Candace?” I asked. “I did not keep up with Candace.”
Shar’s eyes widened with surprise. “You two were peas inside a pod.”
I had no response that was both true and suitable for polite company, so I only said, “Last I heard, she ran away.”
“Yes. She ran away a bunch of times, but she always came back. Candace and I aged out together. Well, it’s a long story, and I have afternoon appointments. But sometime, you should Google her. She goes by Candace Cherries now. She’s a little bit famous.”
“In porn?” I said. I didn’t know what else it could be, with that name. It wouldn’t have surprised me, either, but “porn star” didn’t fit with Shar’s pleased tone.
“Just Google her sometime,” Shar said, closing the subject, but she made no move to leave. Small talk was over, then. I felt my spine get a little straighter.
“So this is about Hana,” I said.
“ ’Course it is,” Shar said. “Once I realized it was you, I got what’s called a little overinterested. So tell me. Why do you think this girl is your sister? She’s a quiet type. Doesn’t say three words if one will do, but she told me she has no siblings, same as she said when she was interviewed at intake.”
“Told you?” I said, leaning forward. “You’ve met her?”
“I came here straight from meeting her,” Shar said, and instantly I was on my feet, going to my desk to get my laptop. “I didn’t tell her about you. I said I was a supervisor, checking on a few things. No sense in riling the child if she isn’t the girl you’re looking for. But if she—” She stopped talking abruptly because I’d brought the laptop back to her, open to one of the scanned pics of Hana feeding fat ducks on the riverside with Kai. There was a long pause, and then Shar said, “Well, I’ll be damned,” with wonderment in her voice, “that’s her.”
“Are you sure?” I said. My voice was shaking now, in spite of my best efforts.
“ ’Course I’m sure. I left that girl’s foster home at about eleven thirty,” Shar said.
“So you’re really sure,” I said.
My hands went numb. My face, too, as Shar nodded.
This was Hana, so Karen Porter was Kai. And Karen Porter was ashes. I’d known that Kai was dead, down to my bones, but this was so specific. Not just dead, but small, reduced to only that which would not burn. Ashes in a box. How Kai would hate that.
At the same time, this was Hana, alive, and maybe even safe, and—I needed to go see her. Now. No, I needed to call Julian. Or— I didn’t know what to do next.
I stared at Shar, suddenly helpless in the real and simple presence of a woman who had seen my missing sister not an hour ago.
Shar reached out a hand and touched Kai’s face on the screen. “I remember her.”
I blinked. “You saw Kai? But the mother in this case was—” I faltered.
“Oh, God, no, I’m sorry,” Shar said, overloud, almost horrified. “No, no, Karen Porter passed. Months ago. I’m so sorry. I meant, I remember seeing her at Mrs. Mack’s. Years ago. When she came to visit you.”
It was the second shock I’d had in as many minutes, but of course she would remember Kai. My mother had visited me four times a week while she worked on finding a job and getting us an apartment. That would stick hard in the memory of a girl like Shar. I couldn’t think about Kai now. Not with Hana found, living and so close.
“So now what do I do?” I said.
I didn’t mean the process, necessarily. I meant it more existentially, but Shar gave her shoulders a little shake and let her hand drop away from the screen. She dug in her oversize bag, pulling out a legal pad and a manila file. The tab said Hannah Porter, and she opened it up onto the coffee table. She got a notebook with a pen stuck through the spirals, too, and bent over the coffee table to write.
“First, I’m going to give you some direct contact information,” Shar said, copying names and numbers and email addresses as she spoke. “I’ll talk to Hannah’s caseworker myself, get her to contact you ASAP. You’re going to want to call the guardian ad litem. This is him, Roger Delany. I don’t know him well. He’s new. But her therapist, Dr. Patel, is very good. I’ve worked with her for several years. She specializes in trauma, which considering Hannah has lost her mother—”
“Her name is Hana,” I interrupted, not wanting to hear the end of that sentence. I knew what Hana had lost. I’d lost my mother, too, years ago, but also four months back, and again a few days past, weeping in bed with Birdwine. It had happened a long time ago; it was still happening now.
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“No, you’re saying Hannah, and it’s Hana.” My sister had been named for a god in my own pantheon, and her name would rhyme with Ghana, not banana. Shar stared at me as if I’d grown a second head, and I realized I had no idea what my face was doing. I’d lost control of it entirely.