NAOMI TRACE’S ATTIC was not the kind of place that had secrets. Every single item was perfectly labeled in a perfectly sized storage Tupperware. Besides, the things she stored up there only took up half of one wall anyhow. The woman was infamous for ruthlessly tossing away keepsakes. Mary had clear memories of her mother nodding briskly at an A-plus essay Mary had brought home and then promptly tossing it into the recycling, seeing no reason to keep it.

Which was why Mary was surprised to find herself in the attic on Sunday morning, her mother pointing to which clear plastic boxes she wanted Mary to shuffle around.

“That one there. No. Wait, it’s the one next to it. Yes.”

Mary blinked at the perfect label that ran along the side of the box. “Photographs,” it read.

She was surprised to see that her mother kept a miscellaneous box of photographs in the attic because Naomi was strictly a photos-belong-in-photo-albums sort of person. Mary had thought that all the photos her parents owned were currently neatly shelved alongside their John Grisham and Agatha Christie collections in the living room.

But here she was, staring down at a plastic shoebox filled to the brim with old photos.

“Here,” her mother said impatiently, gesturing for Mary to hand over the box. Then she reached her hand out and firmly helped Mary step out of the maze of other boxes. Mary had a flashback to her childhood. Slipping at the edge of a pool and falling into the deep end before she could swim. There was the sun, too bright through the water, the white-bubbled panic slipping out of Mary’s nose and mouth. And then there was her mother, a firm hand under Mary’s armpit, yanking her up and out of the water, pushing her wet hair back from her face. “You’re all right,” her mother had said. Firm, clear, comforting.

“Come, sit,” Naomi said now in that exact same tone of voice.

Mary was a little mystified. Her mother was perched on top of one of the larger storage boxes, moved to the side just enough for Mary to have room as well. This was unusual. When her mother had asked her to help her in the attic, Mary assumed that there was some baking utensil or end-of-the-summer decoration her mother wanted brought down. It hadn’t occurred to her that her mother had wanted to sit in the warm attic and look at forgotten photos.

Mary sat down. Naomi was already digging through the box.

“Wait!” Mary stilled Naomi’s shuffling fingers with a hand and reached in to pull out some old Polaroids she’d never seen before. “Is this the day I was born?”

“Oh, don’t look at those. I look like I’d been baking on the side of the road for a week.”