Marian took on a bunnylike aura in these memories, a little cottontail dressed as my sister.

What was it like growing up next to the room of a dead sister you never met?

It was the most I’d ever heard my mother say about my father. I wondered how many other salesladies had received such casual tidbits about him. I had a quick vision of chatting up all the store clerks in southern Missouri, putting together a blurry profile of the man.

People got such a charge from seeing their names in print. Proof of existence. I could picture a squabble of ghosts ripping through piles of newspapers. Pointing at a name on the page. See, there I am. I told you I lived. I told you I was.

How confusing to live in the shadow of a shadow.

I looked down from above like a spiteful little god, the back of my hand placed against my face, imagining how it felt to be cheek to cheek with my mother.

I always feel sad for the girl that I was, because it never occurred to me that my mother might comfort me.

I had shattered some delicate dynamic. A multichild household is a pit of petty jealousies, this I knew, and the Nash children were panicking at the idea of competing not just with one another, but with a dead sister.

Is this what mothers did, wonder if you might need safety pins?