We crept back into the living room, hoping to grab them from the windowsill and go, but Sylvia was still sitting where we had left her, staring into space. Light played over her fraying hair from the glass beads when we moved the shoes.
“Ashley,” she said, looking up, “I’m sorry.”
Startled, I turned to look at her. I had never heard her say those words.
Sylvia’s eyes went from liquid to solid in an instant, as her dominant and dominating persona regained control. “If you walk through that door, though, I swear to God, you will never get an...