Unless, I think with a chill coming over me. Unless that is why the house is showing him to me—because I am the only one who can do the unthinkable. Unless I am to stop him from ever being born.

Can I do the unthinkable deed?

When a figure moves across the basement, I nearly jump out of my skin, thinking it is Julian, come at last, come to take care of his auntie—but it is only my mother. I laugh again, as we do so often when we are afraid.

“Jesus, Mother, you scared me. What are you doing up?”

I expect her to ask what I am doing sitting alone in the dark, laughing to myself; she does not respond but continues to the shelves, and I see in the candlelight that she is younger—not terribly younger, perhaps by fifteen years or so. It is not my mother. Or rather, it is an echo of her.

“What are you doing?” I ask, knowing she cannot hear me.

Taking my candle to light the way, I follow her to the shelves that house old dolls and boxes of dusty antiques, peeling away spider webs grown over the forgotten detritus. Holding up the light, I see that her face is haggard and drained, with hollow, red-rimmed eyes. This is from the time when she drank heavily.

Eventually she finds a small wooden jewelry box with a chain of pearls curled up in its velvet-lined interior. Lifting the tangled necklace, she takes something metallic from her pocket and slips it into the box. Just before she lays the pearls on top of it, I get a glimpse of rusted bronze.

Shutting the box, she stands on her toes and reaches up to slide it onto the highest shelf. Then, wiping dust from her hands, Agnes turns and stalks away.

Dread thrills my heart. What did she slide so delicately under that string of pearls so many years ago?

Because I am several inches shorter than my mother, I drag the wooden chair to the shelves and stand on it to peer over the highest one. As I do, the rickety legs tremble and rock beneath me. Lifting the candle reveals in that flickering glow a small jewelry box sitting at the far back of the shelf, flush against the wall and gray with years of accumulated dust and webs. I reach for it; the box feels sticky with grime.

Perhaps I will open this box and there will be nothing inside anymore—or perhaps I will find only my great-grandmother’s pearl necklace, and I will be left to wonder at the mystery of it all. It feels somehow as if I have been waiting my whole life to open this little box, and I almost laugh again at my foolishness. Fear does make us irrational creatures. I vow to be less irrational, to be more sensible in the future.

Still standing on the chair, with the candle balanced on the shelf, I blow frenetic plumes of dust from the top of the carved wooden box and carefully open the lid, which creaks on its rusted hinges. Inside, the pearls gleam, untouched; gently, I pull them out in one long knotted strand and hold them up, away from the box.