“It doesn’t matter, does it?” Charlie said. “The house is gone. Unless you feel like digging through more rubble, this is all we have.” She pried the box with the peeling tape out of the larger box and handed it to him. All that was left under it was a lockbox, which opened easily when she tugged at the lid. It, too, was filled with papers: on top was a fine-pencil drawing of a familiar face.

“That’s Ella,” John said, peering over her shoulder.

“Yeah,” Charlie said. Her father had captured the doll’s delicate features in exquisite detail, not only her face but her shiny, synthetic hair, and the tiny creases in her dark, starched dress. Her eyes were open wide, and their blank stare was at odds with the rest of the picture: a perfectly lifelike representation of something lifeless.

“I didn’t realize he was such an artist,” John said, and Charlie smiled.

“He said he drew things so he could see them, that it didn’t work the other way around.” She handed John the picture; below it was another, again of Ella, this time from the side. The next showed only Ella’s face, in profile.

“He made Ella, right?” John asked, and Charlie tilted her head, considering the drawing.

Charlie sorted through the rest of the pile more quickly and shook her head, confused. “They’re all of Ella.”

John picked up the remaining cardboard box and ripped the tape off with sound like tearing cloth. It stuck to his fingers as he balled it up, and from the corner of her eye, Charlie saw him struggling to dislodge it. She paged through the drawings again.

“Look at the notes.” She handed him the first drawing they had looked at, growing impatient as he peered at her father’s meticulous, but tiny handwriting. He read it out slowly.

“Height: 81 cm; Head circumference …” He looked up. “It’s just measurements.” Charlie handed him another drawing. “Looks the same to me,” John said, then flicked his eyes to the notations. “Height: 118 cm.” John tilted the page as though he might be reading it wrong.

“This one says 164.5,” Charlie said, holding up another, seemingly identical picture. “I don’t understand,” she said, setting the page in her lap. “Did he make another Ella?” She traced a finger along the line of Ella’s hair, smudging the pencil mark, then a thought struck her. “I wonder if he was trying to make it up to me,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“If he was trying to give me … a companion; a friend, because of what happened.” She met John’s eyes, unable to say what she really meant.

“You mean Sammy? Because you lost your twin, he wanted to give you a doll that would … what, grow up with you?” John said incredulously, and she nodded, relieved that he had made sense of her half-spoken words.