Lisa wearing a blue and white toweling dress with her hair in tightly permed curls. Lisa leaning against a Toyota Celica with the top down, licking an ice-cream. Lisa in a bikini standing in the shallows. Time had changed some of the colors on the Polaroid photos to purple and brown, starkly stating how many years had passed since the long hot summer when they’d been taken. Karen snapped the album shut, not wanting to follow those memories any further. Yet when she went to drop the album back in the box and seal it up again, the bundles of letters made her fingers itch. They were tied with ribbon in neat stacks of ten. Two bundles were clearly marked return to sender. The third was addressed to her and she held it close to her nose, breathing in deeply and hoping for the faint scent of cheap perfume. All she got was the stale and musky smell of old paper. She carefully stacked the letters on top of the album and that’s when she saw the copy of Anne of Green Gables. Her eyes filled with tears.

I’m sorry, Lisa. I should have tried harder. Done so much more.

“Hi, Mom. You okay?”

Startled from her memories, Karen turned to see Alice looking at her with a quizzical look. If she swiped at the tears that teetered heavily on her bottom lids, Alice’s next question would be “What’s wrong?” Karen would do almost anything to avoid the question so she blinked rapidly, glad for once that her glasses hid the finer details.

“I’m on a bit of a high!” she babbled. “It was an excellent class and it’s got me thinking. I’m going to talk to the school about the possibility of leading a trip to New Caledonia next year. The students would really benefit from soaking up some French culture.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Alice spotted the copy of Anne of Green Gables and her face lit up. “Remember how much I loved the Anne books? My favorite was Anne of the Island when Gilbert finally proposes. I remember sobbing my way through Anne’s House of Dreams when she lost the baby.”

“I read you the first one.”

“When I had the chicken pox and was quarantined. You read it to make up for Libby and Dad going to the Tina Arena concert without me. I’ve got the complete set, so where did this one come from?”

Before Karen could reply, Alice picked up the book and flipped it open. “‘To Lisa. Happy birthday, thinking of you. With lots of love from Karen xx.’ Who’s Lisa?”

Hot and cold chills raced across Karen’s skin. She’d kept her family a secret for longer than Alice had been alive and she wasn’t about to falter now. “A friend.”

“So why do you have the copy you gave her?”