Harper started with the laundry, since it was overflowing, and then moved on to the living room. She threw away garbage, vacuumed, and dusted. In the kitchen she scrubbed the floors, cleaned out the fridge, and rearranged the pots and the pans in the cupboards.

Alex came over shortly after Harper decided to tackle the basement. Every Christmas, when they brought up the tree and the ornaments, Harper vowed to go through the old boxes and get rid of junk and organize the keepsakes. She finally decided that today would be the day.

“Harper?” Alex was upstairs calling her name, and, based on the creaking of his footsteps above her head, she guessed he was in the living room.

“I’m down here!” Harper shouted toward the basement steps, hoping he’d hear her.

She was sitting in an old lawn chair, which she’d had to steal from a very large daddy longlegs spider. Once the chair was clean of cobwebs, she’d sat down with an old box on her lap and started rummaging through it.

So far, the box’s contents appeared to be papers and projects from when Harper and Gemma were little. All of the papers had their mother’s writing on them, like Harper—First Grade, Age 7 or Gemma—Mother’s Day Card, Age 3 scrawled across the back.

That also explained why the box only contained items from until Harper was in third grade and Gemma was in first. That was the year when Nathalie had been in the car accident, and although Brian loved his daughters, he’d never been as good about keeping things as their mother had.

Harper pulled out a photo that was bent and faded with age. It had been glued onto a piece of pink construction paper cut into the shape of a lopsided heart. In sloppy cursive across the top, it said My Family in Gemma’s handwriting.

The photo showed the four of them, Brian, Nathalie, Harper, and Gemma, at the beach. Gemma and Harper were wearing matching bathing suits—purple, with white flowers and a ruffle around the bottom. Harper had nearly forgotten about that day, but it was eleven years ago.

They all looked so happy—even Gemma, who hadn’t wanted to come out of the water for the picture. Nathalie had had to bribe her with an ice-cream cone.

“Harper?” Alex said uncertainly from the top of the basement steps, pulling her from her thoughts.

“Yeah.” Harper put the picture back in the box, then set the box aside.

“Sorry, I just let myself in,” Alex said as he came down the steps. “I knocked, but you didn’t answer.”

“No, it’s okay.” Harper stood up and brushed the dust from her knees. The boxes had been sitting down here so long, they’d collected a lot of dirt and cobwebs. “I must not have heard you knocking.”