Nina loved parties. She’d throw one on her birthday every year. There were way too many to include, so I’ve picked out a few of the best: highlights of her looking her most radiant and happy.

One in particular stands out as a clear winner. She’d held a barbecue (but splashed out on caterers) during an uncharacteristic early autumn heatwave. She is wearing a pale pink dress and a cowboy hat. Her favorite necklaces (obviously she couldn’t decide on just the one that night) adorn her neck. I remember that party well because it was the first time I didn’t personally know all of Nina’s friends.

It’s impossible not to pick up on the change in fashions (and hairstyles!) over the years, the hard-to-miss transitions from flares to skinny jeans or short skirts to long. I glance at some of the partygoers—it’s so much easier now I’m not the outsider and it doesn’t hurt so much. I recognize people I didn’t know then—there’s Tamsin wearing the same style of cowboy hat as Nina. (Was that the theme? I don’t recall.) There are also shots of Sharon, Greg and Miriam, plus lots more people from the school and village who are now my friends, too.

The last pictures taken were after Nina’s diagnosis. I worked incredibly hard at not making these shots staged while I took pictures of them all at home, going about their day-to-day lives. Nina wanted them to have ordinary memories recorded, too, not just the obvious celebrations and milestones. She and Stuart baked with them, played board games, went cycling, “messed around” in the garden in the paddling pool, played hide-and-seek. Happy family moments, all immortalized. By me.

The final pictures are of us: me, Stuart, Felix, Emily and Goldie. My bump is clearly visible.

I hear footsteps.

Stuart appears and floods the kitchen with light.

“Can’t sleep either?” he says.

“No, too uncomfortable.”

“What are you doing?” Stuart points to the remaining few photos that didn’t make the album.

“Finishing off Nina’s memory album. I want everything in order before the baby’s born.”

“Nesting,” he says. “Nina was—”

“Please don’t tell me that Nina was the same.”

“Sorry.” He smiles. “And you’re right. About Felix and Em. About the adoption. It’s just that everything has happened so fast. If someone had told me a few years ago that this would be my life now, it wouldn’t have seemed possible.”

“Join the club. Some days I lie there when I first wake up and really can’t quite believe it either.”

Stuart picks up the pile of photos I’ve removed. “What are these?”

I want to snatch them from him. They’re mine. They’re personal.

“Pictures that include Charlie.”

He glances through them.

I hold my breath.

He puts them back down.

The one on the top is the one I found in the attic, the one I love of Charlie, despite Nina and Camilla on either side of him. Boat masts are visible in the distance behind them (which I can easily remove), farther beyond is the sea. He is wearing a blue T-shirt with an image of a shark on the front. He loved that T-shirt almost as much as Nina loved the leopard print shoes she broke that night. I’ll get some more copies printed. I will cut Camilla out of mine completely, yet I realize that if she ever decides to tell Louise the truth about her father, the poor girl may appreciate this one of her father and mother together. I’m sure that Christian would approve of me accepting things and moving on, if I ever decide to tell him.