Shaking my head, I replied, ‘No, I’m just getting started in my career, so I’m hoping this job will be a stepping-stone. Ideally, I’d love to be a journalist or a reporter. Research is kind of my thing and one day I’d love to hunt down more important stories.’

‘That’s very ambitious of you,’ Cris said, with a hint of a smile. For some reason, it was a relief that he seemed to approve of my career goals.

‘Yeah, and she’s really good at it, too,’ Andie chimed in and I looked at her gratefully. With Cris’s stand-offish demeanor I felt the need to impress him, to show him I was worthy, as ridiculous as that was considering I’d just met this man. But he reminded me of my tenth-grade English teacher, also a man of few words, who always made me feel as though I needed to prove myself. ‘In high school,’ Andie continued, ‘she was on the school newspaper and broke a story about the President of the senior class stealing funds. It was quite the scandal. Our friends used to call her Nancy Drew.’ I smiled at the old nickname.

‘Oh, you like Nancy Drew?’ Rosie asked, perking up.

‘We were obsessed with the movie when we were kids. We watched it practically every weekend for a year,’ I said, chuckling.

Rosie glanced at Cris and they shared a long look before he gave a quick, almost imperceptible nod. Rosie looked back at me and rose from her chair. ‘I’ll be right back.’

She ran up the stairs and I shared a confused glance with Andie. The three of us sat in an uncomfortable silence until Rosie padded back downstairs. When she rounded the corner, she handed me an old copy of the Nancy Drew book, The Hidden Staircase.

‘Oh, wow, what’s this from?’ I asked, running my hands along the spine.

‘Go on, open it,’ Rosie smiled.

I opened the cover, the linen crackling with age. Two names were written on the inside, one neatly in pen and the other in childish writing. ‘Was this my mom’s?’ I asked, with a big smile as I took it in.

Cris glanced at the book. ‘Oh, yes, originally it belonged to your great-grandmother, Dorina. She read it often to Frank when he was a kid. They had a tense relationship because she was really hard on him, from what I understand, but the fact that he hung on to that book after she died, well, he must have wanted to keep a piece of her alive with him. He passed the book along to Teresa when she was little, and she loved it too.’

I traced my mother’s name gently with my fingertips, Teresa Dominio, where it was written in crayon. ‘I’ve always meant to read the books, but never got around to it.’

‘You can have that if you want. I’m sure Teresa would have appreciated it getting passed down to her own child,’ Rosie said.