“Don’t bury her—that’s not her in the coffin!” a little girl cries out at a Chicago funeral, stopping everything as a shocking truth inside the coffin is revealed

around. A problem. A shadow. A pair of hungry eyes on a cold pavement.

Now she had a room with sunlight. Rosa had doctors. Caroline kissed her forehead every night. Gabriel taught her chess with the same seriousness he had once used to govern half of Chicago. Lily curled her fingers around Ava’s and refused to let go.

Family, Ava learned, was not always continue reading …