With a shaking hand, she picked up the photograph. She saw it was of her as a baby, cradled in her mother’s arms, and her father bending down to place a kiss on top of her head. Baby Emily was holding tight to the very same duck now sitting on the table, looking back at her with pebbly eyes.

Emily went next door to the living room, put the frame front and center on the mantelpiece, next to the one of Gigi and Giancarlo on their wedding day. She looked across to where other memories were caught within a frame. Now she knew that the pain, the sorrow, she felt at the absence of all she once had was shared by her grandmother. She could finally accept, understand, that it was felt the world over by anyone and everyone who had ever lost someone they loved.

Next door, her grandmother’s study waited, still and quiet, with the desk by the window on which her ancient typewriter sat, its keys shining in the afternoon light. A shelf full of red notebooks, just like the one in her hand, filled with all the imaginings of that incredible mind.

But this notebook was different somehow, with one of the corners worn away, and the pages felt stiff and crackly as she eased apart the spine. In the center of the first page was a title, written by a child’s hand.

The Adventures of Ophelia and Terence

By Emily Catriona Davenport (age 9)

“Oh,” she whispered, turning the page to see a drawing of a little girl with pigtails, holding tight to the hand of a pale gray duck.

“Oh,” she said, louder this time, as she leant against the desk and a memory began to unfold. A memory of herself, as a girl, seated at the kitchen table, asking her grandmother how best to write a story.

“There’s no magic formula,” Catriona had replied, cutting into a freshly baked lemon cake and handing Emily a slice. “But make sure you write about something you know.”

Then she had gone into the hallway of the house that Emily used to call home, came back with a brand new red leather notebook, still wrapped in plastic. She had told Emily that it was the very same type of notebook she used to write down all her own ideas.

“It was my story,” Emily said as she flicked through the pages, written by a child whose mind was filled with dreams and wild imaginings. A child whose existence had not been tarnished by pain and suffering. Someone Emily was beginning to believe in once again.

“It will always be our story,” she said as she went back into the kitchen, looking for someone to tell. For Milton, only he was suddenly nowhere to be seen. She was alone, but not lonely. Fearful, but not afraid. Ready to start again, to find out how she fit into this so-called life. To discover what it was she wanted to do with however much time she had left. To decide what happened next in the story.