Near the back was a copy of Sarah’s photograph.
“Where did you get this?”
Emily admitted she had photographed it after my wallet fell open years earlier.
“Is she why you become quiet near our birthday?” Grace asked.
I told them I had hidden Sarah because I did not want them to feel like second choices.
“We never felt that way,” Emily said.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then help us understand,” Grace replied.
I stared at Sarah’s smile.
“If I spoke about her, I was afraid you would hear what I had lost instead of understanding what you gave me.”
Emily turned to the final page. Four names were written there:
Sarah.
Ivy.
Emily.
Grace.
My breath caught.
“You know about Ivy?”
They had discovered her blanket in the cedar box while searching for old decorations. For eighteen years, I had kept Ivy’s name hidden because speaking it made the loss feel immediate again. But my daughters had written her name beside their own as though she had always belonged there.
