Dad wrote that he wanted one promise to my mother that his weakness could never undo. He could not openly stand beside me while he was alive, but he could make sure nobody separated us after he was gone. The grave beside hers had been reserved since 1996, and he had quietly made me the person responsible for it. It was the closest thing he could leave me to an apology.

Six weeks later, Glenda came to the cemetery office. Mrs. Haverly called me first, asking whether I wanted to be there. I went. Glenda returned the 13-D plot without an argument. Then she sat in a plastic chair and admitted she had spent twenty-seven years jealous of a dead woman and of the little girl who walked into her kitchen wearing that woman’s face. She never asked me to forgive her, and I never offered.

I told her she could visit my mother’s grave whenever she wanted. In October, I found fresh tomatoes beside the stone. I knew immediately who had left them. I didn’t move them. Somehow, that small gesture felt like the first honest thing Glenda had ever given us.

Now I go every Sunday at the hour Dad used to call from the garage. I sit between my parents and tell them about my week, out loud and without hiding. For twenty-seven years, I was the daughter from before—the one kept on the phone and outside the door. My father couldn’t stand beside me in daylight while he was alive. But in the end, he made sure nobody could keep me out.