Their mother had died in an alley when Joseph was eleven. He found her when he'd gone looking for her again. He and Devin, who was only eight at the time. They'd walked up and down blocks, poking in places where they'd seen her before.

Devin spotted her first, though he didn't know it. A bright blast of red dripping down off a wall. A blue cotton pile just below it. Blonde hair frizzed from the dampness--Joseph always wondered about that, if dead hair could frizz--and her sad eyes open and blue. A fine white dust on her lip, a burgundy dried line of blood down her cheek.