That afternoon, Eby was gazing at the ceiling in cabin number 9. There was a water stain here that looked like a bicycle wheel. It had been here for years, growing progressively larger. It had appeared the year George died. Back then it had looked like a tiny black beetle, and she used to come to this cabin and stare at it, sometimes swearing it would move, that it would run around the ceiling and spell out words like hope and love and real. But then she would blink and the words would go away. The stain was in the corner of the room, and its moisture had caused the coral wallpaper to peel away from the top. She’d always meant to fix that tiny leak, but then she’d thought, What if the ceiling wanted to tell me something else? So she’d left it.

This cabin also had a truly magnificent sleigh bed, antique and handcrafted. The camp was scattered with antiques from Eby and George’s halcyon days, hidden like secret treasure among the cheaper stuff. The vanity next to the yard-sale dresser was one George had bought on their honeymoon, an antique with inlay, the mirror slightly smoky, as if it would magically show you the most beautiful version of yourself if you asked. But she’d never asked. Her sister Marilee had been the beautiful one in their family. Even so, George, who had risen to the top of Atlanta’s eligible bachelors when he’d unexpectedly inherited his estranged grandfather’s money, had chosen Eby over her. Oh, Marilee had tried to win him. But she would have had to overcome a lifetime of teasing him in school about his red hair and bad teeth. Eby had always been kind to him, in love with him most of her life because he drew the most beautiful things with pencil and paper during classes. He was a dreamer, like her. And he’d wanted to marry her when he’d inherited his money, much to everyone’s surprise. He could have had his pick of beautiful belles. He could have had Marilee, before she’d fallen in love with Talbert, the gas station attendant. But he’d loved only Eby.

You didn’t need a mirror to tell you that you were beautiful when you had proof like that.

There was a knock on the door, then she heard Kate call, “Eby?”

Startled, Eby sat up on the dusty bed. She thought she could come here in secret. She thought Kate would be like everyone else and fall under the siesta spell that summer afternoons at Lost Lake were famous for casting.

After an initial panic, she decided not to bother getting off the bed. She’d been caught. There was no use trying to hide it. “I’m in here,” Eby said.