Euphemia bumped the car door closed with her hip, her arms laden with groceries and her phone tucked against her shoulder. A presumably older woman on the other side was giving her a bit of a lecture, but Eppie was distracted with keys and bags. Besides, she had heard her grandmother’s New Orleans safety lecture more times than she had ever cared to. Every week, Ana seemed to have new statistics regarding crime or weather or anything that she thought might affect the little girl she had raised. This week, the prime topic was the drinking water, and Ana wanted to make sure Eppie was buying plenty of bottled water. Filters, she insisted, were not likely to catch half the contaminants that they needed to worry about.

In some ways, it was a good thing, Ana’s incessant chatter. As long as the woman could stress over water tables, she wasn’t pressing about Eppie’s actual life down in New Orleans. She didn’t want to have to explain whatever was happening between her and Ash or go into another spiel that threw the wool over what she really did at Phalanx. Ana still thought she was teaching at a charter school; she hadn’t had time to sit down and unpack absolutely everything that had happened to her down south. There would always be time later, she reasoned. Besides, some things she didn’t even want to begin to explain until they were settled and named. So she stuck with non-committal “uh-huh”’s and “oh really”’s until she was at the door of Phalanx, which was, strangely, unlocked. She shouldered the door open and kicked it back closed, noticing a new figure in the living room.

“Hey, Ma, I’m going to let you go, okay? I just got back to the house, and I’ve got work to do.” Before the other woman could finish her protest, Eppie added, “Okay, love you, bye” rather quickly and hung up. She could always call her grandmother again later, but there was a strange woman in the living room of Phalanx that needed her attention at the moment. She shifted the bags to her hip and gave the stranger a warm smile. She looked completely unfamiliar, but she had grown used to that at Phalanx. People came to check out the house or visit some of the kids rather often, but usually, they were accompanied by another adult. She couldn’t see Ash or Carver anywhere. Had they missed a visit? She wouldn’t put it past them.

Dropping off the groceries in the kitchen with instructions for the kids to put them away, she popped back into the living room. “Hey there. Are you here for one of the kids or on behalf of a kid?” Professional, warm, bright; it was a voice she had perfected at plenty of open houses and teacher-meet-and-greets.

Pushing up the sleeves of her sweater, Eppie gave the woman her now undivided attention. She watched as the woman seemed to be taking in all of the photographs around the room. They were some of her favorite things in the house, as well; each one was a snapshot of warmth and love that, with her power, quite literally radiated from them. Her face had cropped up in just a few of them lately, and it felt a little bit like she had earned a bit of a place among the other smiling faces. It was a spot of honor and pride for her, not that she was readily up front about something so silly.

Nope, not here for a kid. A bit confused, she crossed her arms but did her best to keep her welcoming smile. There were only so many things people could wander into Phalanx about, and the woman certainly didn’t look like some Avon saleswoman. The stranger went on, and Eppie’s confusion only mounted. Her smile faltered and fell away completely. Who was this woman? Caution bit at the back of her neck, but curiosity always won out with her, especially in the arena of her mother. She had done more and worse ill-conceived things than listen to strangers who wandered into her place of work and residence. “Um, yeah, I’ve been looking for stuff about my mom,” she finally replied, her tone a little more cautious. She took the offered business card and turned it over in her hands gently, as though it might spontaneously catch on fire at any minute. When she confirmed the fact that it was simple cardstock, she tapped the edge gently on her palm.

“Miss…Valdez, is it? How do you know about my mother?” Curiosity almost always won out with her. Curiosity killed the cat, her grandmother had drilled into her, conveniently forgetting the end of the phrase. Little Eppie had always supplied it with a gap-toothed grin: But satisfaction brought it back.