She shrugs. “You two had your little club. And I always got the feeling that maybe Gram looked down on me sometimes. Both of you. Because I’d rather fit in than stand out.”

“Maybe I did sometimes,” I say slowly, “but not Gram. I don’t think Gram looked down on anybody.”

“You remind me of her, you know. You have her spirit.”

“Really?” I ask. I look down at my hands for some reason, like I’ll be able to see the shape of her palms in mine.

“Really,” says Lily.

Suddenly, I fling myself out of my chair and wrap my arms around her. Because even with all my questions about Gram, it still means everything that Lily would say something like that to me. “Thanks, Lily,” I whisper.

My sister hugs me tight in answer.

39

It rains all morning. After breakfast, Lily leaves to go to a study group, and I start back up to my room. I keep thinking about what Lily said. You have her spirit.

Dad told me I knew Gram’s heart.

I want to believe them so badly. But how do I know if it’s true? How do I find the real Gram?

Whenever I have a problem, her voice echoes in my head, I like to retrace my steps.

Maybe if I retrace her steps, I can find something to explain what she was hiding. My heart lifts as I think that maybe she even left me something to explain it. I just haven’t found it yet.

I take the last few stairs two at a time. I decide to start with the studio because that’s the one room in Gram’s house that no one’s been in much since she died. She could have left something there for me in plain sight and I wouldn’t know it.

It hits me as soon as I walk in—that smell of paint and canvas so strong that, for a second, I’m sure I’ll look up to see Gram sitting at her easel.

I think part of the reason no one’s really come in here is because none of us knows what to do with the paintings that she never finished.

They’re all landscapes—of the river and meadows mostly, one of Old Joe’s farm at sunset, and one of a garden with a lily pond. I’ve never seen that one before—the painting or the garden. Gram was painting it in the same broad, swooping strokes and bright, contrasting colors that she always used. They made everything come to life.

Tearing my gaze from the unfinished paintings, I search the room top to bottom. The rain beats on the old windowpanes, making them rattle as I look in her desk drawers, then in her filing cabinets. I even walk around, bouncing lightly on each floorboard in hopes that one might be loose.

But there’s nothing.