Matt had loved Emmy, with her freckled, luminous, magical body; he had loved the way she hadn’t given a damn for anything, the way she had climbed onto the roof of the church tower and kissed and kissed him. The way she’d fallen into the river just to know what it felt like. He had loved the way she had said to her parents, ‘We’ll just love it, okay?’

He remembered how they had believed that loving Mahalia would be enough.