“‘Today is Jenny’s birthday. She’s my best friend at camp because she’s pretty and kind and she let me have the top bunk. I said we could swap every two days so that we could both have the top bunk.’”

“Put an exclamation point there. No, two exclamation points. She was fond of overpunctuating as a child.”

“‘We both got care packages from home today, but the one from my mom was the biggest out of anyone in my cabin. I think the other girls were jealous, so I put the raisins and peanuts out on the card table for everyone to share. I have to remember to wrap them up again before lights out so we don’t get ants. Mommy also sent me the new Nancy Drew mystery—I’m already finished with the first chapter. When I’m done I’ll see if Martha will trade it for one of her Famous Five books from England.’”

“Excellent work, my girl. Sounds exactly like her at her best. I always said that she really thrived when she was able to mobilize her resilience and the resourcefulness she inherited from her father and me.” She leans in closer to check the handwriting in my draft against the original. On that day in 1977, little Sophia actually confessed to stealing all of her bunkmate’s chocolate. She’d snuck in during craft time, and even though she had plenty of chocolate from her mother’s care packages she’d torn through the other girl’s stash and buried the wrappers in the woods. When the theft was discovered, she denied it, confessing only to her antacid-pink diary with Secrets in cursive across the cover and a supremely pathetic lock. At least I’ve already finished rewriting her letters, a poor kid begging her mother to let her come home.

Mrs. Tyburn thinks “Sophia’s” handwriting should be smaller and more rounded when I transcribe the alternative story into the replica diary. Piece of cake.

“Very nearly perfect,” she says. “Leave the rest with me and I’ll be up soon with my corrections. Finish up the diary and after that make a start at slimming her down in the pictures. The group photos might be a bit tricky because that silly Instamatic camera she had was dreadful, but I know you’ll work your usual magic. And if you have time, perhaps you’ll make a start at fixing that boat.” She means the pictures of the boat.

With this she curls her fingers—which are somehow both skeletal and amazingly soft—around my chin, beaming pride at me. The truth is that I’m her favorite child because I’ve fallen for her only trick like neither of her real children ever would. I need her money, I rely on it, so during billable hours I’ll do and say just about anything she wants. I’m hers like no one else has ever been.