“I think I knew that. I mean, I did know that. Upstate? With your aunt—”
She grins. “A tiny town on the Vermont border. An old friend of my mom’s lives there, and Mom actually reached out and called her after everything that had happened. Cindy, my mom’s friend, was having a hard time with her rheumatoid arthritis and offered a place to me in exchange for some household help while my mom got her life back together. I think Cindy was kind of lonely, too.”
“How’s your mom?” I had so many questions that picking just one felt like triage.
“She used the time I was in high school, living with Cindy, to go back to school. She’s an administrator at Lakepoint Adult Residential Facility — for adults who need long-term medical care.”
“So she’s still around here.”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re here, now,
