It wasn’t a dollhouse really; not in the sense of a miniature building. Instead it was sort of like a cabinet, divided into little cubic spaces, and inside of each of those spaces were the most spectacular miniature rooms imaginable. Set tables with engraved silverware arranged alongside blue and white china. Windows covered with velvet drapes fringed with silk and lace. Little canopy beds with down comforters; a kitchen with a fireplace stove and copper pots hanging from its ceiling. Book-lined shelves and upholstered chairs. And dolls dressed like Pilgrims at a Thanksgiving dinner, sitting down at their banquet tables in their high black hats and silver-buckled shoes.

Leora looked at the dollhouse, trembling, silent. Many seconds passed before she was able to speak. When she could, she turned back to Jake, swallowing first to keep her voice clear, and said, “I used to have a dollhouse.”

Jake touched her hand. An even stronger shudder went through her, but then she saw what he was doing—flipping through her notebook. “I thought you might have had a dollhouse,” he said. “See, this is how I guessed.” He planted his finger on an ink-filled page. “Look how tiny your handwriting is.”

He was right. In the notebook, words were crammed at least three lines to every notebook rule. Leora was still a conservation-minded person, and she liked to take down as much as possible, even if it meant shrinking the words.

She turned back to the dollhouse, glancing at each room as if counting them, numbering the dolls. One of the dolls, a girl, was seated in a chair opposite a miniature painting. Leora looked at the girl looking at the painting, and then suddenly, after so many years, stopped looking.

She turned to Jake again, who had noticed that it wasn’t a game anymore. He was biting his lip slightly, searching her face. At last she spoke, struggling to hold her voice steady. “My friend—her name was Naomi—my friend Naomi and I had a dollhouse, once. We shared it. Naomi—she—Naomi died, but—well, I—I said before that I used to have a dollhouse, as if it were just my dollhouse, but the truth is, it wasn’t just mine, it was Naomi’s too. And I said before that I used to have a dollhouse, as if I didn’t have it anymore, but the truth is, I still have that dollhouse, somewhere. I put it away after Naomi died.” It was the first time that she had said Naomi’s name aloud in seven years.