I smiled back before reaching over and pulling her in close. Rubbing her arms to keep warm, I scanned the distance for our mother, praying she would appear.

Annabelle’s timid voice finally broke the silence. “Do you think he was telling the truth?”

I lowered my gaze to the sidewalk, unable to look back into those hopeful eyes. “Of course not.”

Chapter 32

I always knew there had been a daughter before me. She was named Sophia after my mother’s mother, and was born in the springtime. I came the following winter. My parents rarely spoke of her unless pried and prodded. She was buried in a cemetery on the outskirts of town, near the garbage dump. I don’t remember ever visiting her grave as a child, although my parents assured me that we did.

One afternoon, tucked away in the drawer of my mother’s bedside table, I found an old photograph of Sophia and me lying in a crib together. We looked incredibly similar: both heads covered in blond fuzz, large dark blue eyes peering up at the camera. We were dressed in matching onesies covered in little bears. If she hadn’t been nearly twice my size, we might have been twins.

I brought the photograph to my mother who was mixing cookie dough in the kitchen. “Will you tell me about her?” I asked, my arm extended.

“Grace.” She wiped her hand on her apron and took the photo from me, stuffing it into the pocket of her cotton pants. “Mommy told you, she doesn’t like talking about this.”

“Please,” I pouted. “Just this once and I’ll never ask again.”

She sighed, glancing out the window for a moment. She lowered her voice. “Okay. You can ask three questions.”

Smitten, I began. “What was she like?”

“Well, she was a very sweet little baby. Her laugh made everyone around her laugh, too.” My mother smiled, looking past me. “The two of you were always giggling together, speaking a secret baby language.”

“So we were friends?”

“Oh yes, best friends.” She cracked an egg on the counter and raised it, letting it fall into the metal mixing bowl. “Okay, hurry up, last question.”

“What happened to her?”

My mother inhaled, peeking over her shoulder toward the door. “It was an accident.”

“What do you mean?” I tucked my hair behind my ears.

“Sometimes accidents happen,” she explained, picking up the wooden spoon and resuming her mixing. “And it’s no one’s fault.”

My father entered the room and my mother flinched, ever so slightly.

“What are we whispering about?” he asked, grabbing an apple from the ceramic bowl on the kitchen table. He tossed it into the air and caught it with the opposite hand.

“I’m just teaching Gracie my secret cookie recipe.” She winked at me, and my father nodded in approval before exiting the room, taking a bite from his apple.

Chapter 33

Standing at the kitchen island, I thumbed through a frayed copy of The Joy of Cooking. William was coming for dinner and I’d promised him our mother’s chicken cacciatore. Annabelle had left home when she was old enough to do so, vowing she would never return to the island so long as she lived. Even in death, she said, she wouldn’t be brought back here, and at sixteen wrote a fake will that she made me sign, promising I would keep her corpse away from this family. I hadn’t seen her since.