Last night, a new story woke me from my bed, and I could not sleep for the importuning voices of the characters, engaged as they were in some strange dialogue I do not choose to record: It sets the man as too excitable, the woman too cold.

30 September

In the house tonight, we ladies await the men’s late return from the quarry: I for the scene, and Sue for the company. Mother has retired; Abby has left a light supper by the fire, but it remains untasted, for both Sue and I are hard at work. There she sits in her corner, and I do not need to turn round to see her hand hesitate above the black page of her scrapbook, or the manner in which she sucks thoughtfully upon her lip, surveying the arrangement she has prepared for each page.

Piled at her feet are little labeled boxes full of things she has saved: a sliver cut from a letter of condolence sent to Mother from a person in Belgium; leaves and shells, feathers, scraps of dresses we have cut down and given away. All our lives are held there upon the pages of Sue’s black books—senselessly, I should add, for she has made no effort to explain, merely to record.

“Why paste that in?” I had turned round to see her holding up a steamer ticket of George’s—for a trip he never took, mind.

She placed it carefully down upon the page. “Because it happened.”

“Nay, Sue. George never went.”

“Exactly.”

The men burst in. I accosted the first to enter. “Mr. Thomas, what do you think about saving every little scrap, every little thing connected to the events of a year?”

“Why I think it should make quite a stockpile!” he replied cheerfully, crossing to the fire.

George, however, came to Sue and looked over her shoulder at what she did. “Well, look at that. I had forgotten it was the same day.” Both he and Sue were silent. “Poor Father,” he said suddenly, and she looked up at him and smiled.

“What does the ticket say about your father?” Cousin Gilroy had also drawn near to Susannah. She rubbed the paper flat with a tiny board and leaned down to blow softly upon the page.

“The ticket says nothing about our father,” I replied, and turned away from them to see Mr. Thomas give a good kick to the center log.

“Not true,” said George soberly. “I did not use the ticket because Father had just died.”

Mr. Thomas’s foot stilled.

“Nonetheless,” I pursued into the silence, “Susannah’s book is full of things without explanation. The ticket itself does not describe what happened.”

“It does not describe,” Susannah remarked, “it stands for.”

Cousin Gilroy leaned over her to the box beside the open book and picked up a deep green leaf rimmed by a bit of orange.

“And what does this stand for?” he asked.