Kimberly Brix -

“Maybe I am,” Kimberly said.

Val took her hand. Her palm was calloused, warm, smelling of motor oil and honesty. “Then unfold,” she said. “Just this once.” kimberly brix

It was filled with drawings. Sketches of a little girl with wild hair and too-long legs, running through desert landscapes that looked exactly like the ones outside Kimberly’s window. Her mother had drawn her. Over and over, year after year, even after they’d stopped speaking. On the last page, a single sentence: My daughter is not a thing to be folded away. “Maybe I am,” Kimberly said

The return address was a women’s correctional facility in upstate New York. Kimberly’s mother. “Then unfold,” she said

The second crack came in the form of a rusty pickup truck and a girl named Val Ortiz.

The irony was that she never did disappear. Not really.

Kimberly closed the notebook. She looked up at Val, who was watching her with steady, unwavering eyes.