And about Maggie—how she’d come to adopt them. Or had she adopted all of them? Yesterday after Sydney had walked in on Neil in the bathroom, Maggie had said his full name. Neil MacKean. But she was certain she’d heard Wilder refer to one or both of the girls by the last name Muir.

“Hey, Maggie?”

But once again, the older woman had already moved on to the one remaining door between Neil’s room and Sydney’s. A closet?

Or no . . . stairs. It must lead to the attic, then.

“Normally I wouldn’t include this on the tour, but there’s a couple things I need from up there. Worrywart that he is, Neil asked me not to climb the attic stairs alone. So if you don’t mind . . .”

“I don’t mind at all.”

She started up the stairs behind Maggie. If the carpeted staircase below creaked, these narrow, steep steps fairly groaned as they climbed.

Stuffy air wrapped around her as she reached the top, along with the musty scent of mothballs and old wood. She inhaled dust and coughed as she scanned the dimly lit space. Piles of cardboard boxes and plastic tubs. A circle of pale sunlight from a window on the far wall. And then, after Maggie’s tug on its string, the yellow glow of a lone bulb hanging from a chain.

Maggie was already picking her way across the attic, obviously having homed in on at least one of the items she’d come up here to retrieve. By the time Sydney reached her, she was already unzipping a long, black garment bag hanging on the back of a wardrobe.

Seconds later, the swish of fabric let loose a plume of dust, and Maggie turned, holding up a wrinkled white dress.

A wedding dress?

Maggie spread the fabric in front of her, lining up its puffed shoulders with her own. “What do you think? Dreadfully out of style, of course, but I’m positive with a little of her magic needlework, Indi can turn it into something dazzling. Although, personally, I thought it quite dazzling as it was back when I . . .” She smoothed one hand over the front of the gown.

Surprise garbled Sydney’s voice. “It’s yours?” But she’d thought . . . hadn’t Wilder said Maggie never married?

“Yes, though I never wore it but for a few minutes of tailoring.” Maggie lowered the dress over a ripped wingback chair. “I was engaged as a very young woman. Young and terribly impulsive, I must confess. Robert proposed to me only three weeks after we met. But to this day, I believe it was love—the real thing.” Her gaze took on a dreamy quality. “Sometimes a feeling is just a feeling. Other times it’s truth wrapped in undeniable knowing.” Her faraway look faded. “But he’d already been drafted when we met. Vietnam. He proposed two days before shipping out in 1969. Both our parents insisted we wait to marry until after. I was a month away from turning eighteen, you see. But he . . . didn’t come home.”