Emily wandered over to the bed, then lay on top of the mattress that dipped in the middle, pulled the quilt over her shoulders, closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of lavender that used to follow her grandmother wherever she went.

She hadn’t been in the room for weeks, not since emptying the contents of her grandmother’s wardrobe and nightstand. She’d sorted through what could go to charity and what held too many memories to throw away, including a vintage compact and lipstick case, a music box with filigree key, and a carriage clock that chimed out each hour.

Other items Emily had never seen before, but held the suggestion of her grandmother’s past—items that Catriona apparently couldn’t bear to part with, instead hiding them at the back of her wardrobe for so many years. There was a pair of handmade velvet shoes, the soles worn thin, that made Emily think of nights dancing in the arms of a handsome man in uniform while the band played on. A copy of A Room with a View, tucked inside of which was a crumbling rose, its petals papery and flattened by time, and a photograph in a tarnished silver frame, of her grandmother as a baby held in her mother’s arms, wrapped up tight against the bitter Scottish winter.

Emily had carefully wrapped each item in between thin layers of tissue paper, placed them inside a cardboard box, and then made a list of absolutely everything her grandmother had possessed in a notebook, in the hope that she might not forget a single thing.

Except there was so much she still didn’t know. Emily rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, watched a spider spinning its web in the corner above the wardrobe, on top of which was a battered yellow suitcase. The same suitcase her grandmother said she had taken with her all over Europe, when Emily’s mother was just a baby herself.

Where did they go? Emily wondered, because she couldn’t remember the names of all the places her mother had been taken as Catriona Robinson went in search of inspiration and adventure. She knew only how her mother had said she much preferred being at home, with her family. She had always told Emily she had no need of adventure when her entire world was right there in front of her.

There was so much more she hadn’t been told, and Emily realized she had been too foolish to ever ask. It was as if Catriona had deliberately kept her past a secret because she knew one day it would come in handy.

So many secrets all tangled up together, or perhaps it had simply been too painful for her grandmother to remember. They had hardly ever spoken about her parents since their deaths. Even now, Emily felt her mind shut down whenever she thought back to before the accident. During her recovery, she had been told to focus on the present, to take one day at a time, and her grandmother always said looking back brought nothing but regret, which itself was just a waste of emotion.