Penny unwraps the blanket from Sky’s sweet, small body and lays it on my bed. Placing Sky gently on top of it, Penny sings to her as she eases off her little knitted socks. I stand a way back, half enchanted by those tiny toes and the small snuffles she makes, and half scared, wondering who taught Penny how to be a mother, how she knew how to love a stranger so fully and tenderly. I am about to ask whether she needs water to clean Sky with when Penny, kneeling at the bedside, tickling Sky’s feet, looks up to me.

“Nobody knows, Leora,” she says with a small, exhilarated smile. “Only me and Blake.” Untying the knot that holds Sky’s wrapped cotton suit closed, Penny touches Sky’s nose with a tiny kiss. She moves the clothing apart and sighs, looking up at me with awed, eager eyes. I take a step nearer but have to stop. Something bubbles at my throat – tears or laughter, I don’t know which – but all around us is the perfume of joy: daisies and spring water and toast and Seb’s best biscuits. There on Sky’s beautiful, perfect tummy, which rises and falls at such a tremendously alive rate, right there I see two sisters, hands clasped, faces close enough to kiss.

The stories aren’t pointless. History is not repeating. The sisters are, again, writing their message and promising that all things can be new.

“I knew you would understand,” whispers Penny when I fall on my knees and weep and giggle at this small miracle, who lies on a blanket on my bed.

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-four

The box

Oh! A box.

Now, we know that a box is always rather magical – like a hiding place for a secret.

I like boxes, I just don’t know how to feel about their lids.

Don’t laugh at me – I’m telling you, the lid of a box is worse than any trap humankind have created to snare beasts. But then, the lid is also more wonderful than any closed mouth before a song.

Give me a box and I won’t thank you – not right away – not until I know what the lid is there for. The lid of the box has such an allure – who can resist undoing the clasp, or releasing an edge or placing a key in the lock? The lid invites you, it hypnotizes you. It makes you forget.

The lid is meant to keep things separate – to keep you from getting to the thing within, or to keep the thing within from getting to you. You will only know which when the lid is opened, and by then, it will be too late.