Hush

Evie (Toswiah) is scared to tell the reader where her family is. Cameron and Toswiah still exist, but they are “Anna” and “Evie” now. The sisters attend the same high school. Evie tells her new classmates that she is from San Francisco. To Evie’s surprise, one of the girls is named Toswiah, the first non-family member she’s met who shares her name. Toswiah challenges Evie about whether or not she thinks San Francisco is better than anywhere else; the latter denies this before quietly walking away.

Evie recalls a new girl joining her class back in Denver, when they were in the fourth grade. The girl had a bump on each hand where a sixth finger used to be, which the other children would make fun of. Evie (Toswiah) had told the class that she and the girl were cousins, before whispering to her that she shouldn’t let the others see her cry. Later, she touched the bumps on the girl’s hands and told her to think of them as beautiful, as Shirley always told her to look for beauty in others.