 It was like all the other rituals over the years, with father chanting the dark lines, mother's beautiful white ivory hands moving in the reverse blessings, and all the children gathered except Sisi, who lay upstairs in bed. But Sisi was present. You saw her peering, now from beyond's eyes, now Samuel's, now mother's, and you felt a movement, and now she was in you, fleetingly, and gone.