The neighbors say she didn’t scream. Not that they ever heard.

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Not that any of them can recall, at least.

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And supposing their ears did detect some animal wail, some high-pitched bleat. What of it? No sooner would the hair on their necks have risen in salute than their brains would have stood them at ease. Nothing to worry about; nothing at all. Just that wiry old cat under the porch next door. The lunch whistle down at the glassworks. A hawk flying free in the sky.

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I don’t fault them. I know how slippery brains can be, how they like to reconcile things that ought never be squared. And in the end, it makes no difference. The absence or presence of a scream changes nothing. And yet . . .

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And yet, I can’t shake this notion that her cries went unheeded. Their echoes settled into the soil long ago, and still I strain to hear them. I can fritter hours—entire nights—just trying to make out the exact pitch, tenor, tone. I try to recreate everything about that moment. Not to mention all the moments leading up to it. Each and every brick paving the path to ruin.

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The past is perilous place to linger. I know it. Safer by a mile to stick to the here and now. I know that, too. How many times has Da said those very words? He sits by the stove in the feeble lamplight, cracking nuts until his hands are dry and dusted, and he reminds me that yesterday’s dead and gone. Take its lessons, say a prayer, and be on yer way.

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As if memories can be brushed off like the salt on his fingers.

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It’s not that I don’t see the wisdom in Da’s counsel. It’s good advice. It is. And I try to heed it. I do. I tell myself not to dwell. Trouble is, my mind has a mind of its own. So often I catch it drifting. And when it slips away, it goes looking for her. For Cora. Always.

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I challenge the children to a game of potsy, and there she is, sitting out back in her sky-blue dress, telling her dolls stories they’re too young to hear. I clean up after dinner, and Cora is there, sugaring a plate of strawberries, laughing as she swipes a spot of suds from the tip of my nose. Once more I dance to the air of her voice, once more I can hear that musical birdchirp that made her the pet of everyone who knew her.

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But more than on any specific memory, where my mind comes to rest is the gaps. The empty spaces. The things I didn’t see. The words I wasn’t privy to.

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I picture a child with cornsilk hair. Huddled in the dark, she searches for angels and prays for night to be over.

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I see a young woman hiding behind hands that spasm and shake. The sound pouring out of her is not so much a scream but a force. A blast. A storm that rattles the windows and shifts the floor, presses through the ceiling and sweeps past the beams, startling the moldered remains of roaches and mice, the feeding ground of the ants and mites and smaller creatures. Things Cora always said were there, even if I couldn’t see them with my naked eye. (Though I never did understand how an eye can be anything but naked.)

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But, then again, maybe the neighbors have been right this whole time. Maybe Cora didn’t scream at all. Maybe she was already gone by that point. Her spirit just spirited itself away, tucked inside a chrysalis of filigreed iron—still beautiful, delicate, but impervious to anything outside herself.

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The way she was when I found her.

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Was she really was as closed off as she seemed that day? There is no way ever to know. But that doesn’t stop me from wondering. Many nights, I’ve lain in bed, talking to the ghost of a memory, begging it for answers. Did you know? I ask. Did you know when the men arrived? Could you hear them?

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I heard them, she tells me. The voices. I even picked up words—hurt . . . happened . . . tell. But my mind assigned them no meaning. The words were just noise. Reverberations. No different from the skittering of squirrels across the attic floor.

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But what about their hands, I press. Could you feel them? There were so many.

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She closes her eyes. So many I lost count. A hand to force my chin up, another holding the flashlight that burned my eyes. More hands fighting to unlock my arms, pry back my fingers, raking dress fibers beneath their nails. Still more on my boots, forcing my legs straight.

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Resisting your resistance.

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She nods, shudders, stares at her own hands, reflects on the damage mere hands can do.

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I don’t want her thinking such thoughts.

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And what of me, I ask. Did you know I was there? Did you know how I ached to throw myself in front of you, protect you? But I was held back by more men, more hands. All I could do was just stand in the hall, helplessly watching as the men clawed and questioned.

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She looks at me then, and I wonder that a look can be both severe and forgiving. Her lips part to speak but before the words come, the ghost fades away, and I’m once again alone. Curling into a ball, I think of Cora, trapped in that shelter of her own making, retracting, wrapping herself up as tight as possible. And there’s one thing I’m sure of: there’s a reason Cora fought so hard to make herself so small. If she could only make herself small enough, she might disappear completely. The world might disappear completely.

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Then, there would be nothing that could break her.

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Then, there would be nothing left for her to break.