“Do you want some help?” said Liam, rising.

“No, thanks.” She smiled at him, the man without a past with whom she was falling in love, and shook her head. He could help her later, she thought, when she brought down the larger boxes, the big box with the theater programs and school yearbooks, and the little leather case that held the fans and the sketches and the pieces of needlework. But first, she would go alone to bring down the letters; it would be the last time she would have Grandma Jo to herself. “Thanks, but I want to do this on my own.”

“Independent family, aren’t they?” Liam grumbled to Matthew, sitting down again.

“You don’t know the half,” said Matthew.

Lulu went up the stairs of her parents’ house, as she had so many times in the last year, up past the seventh stair that creaked on the left side but not the right, and the twelfth stair, where there was a yellow paint stain on the carpet that had never washed out, past her parents’ bedroom and Fee’s consulting room, up the stairs, past Tom’s room—its door closed, its occupant out eating breakfast with cousin Susan—and up the rickety ladder into the attic. She went to the bookshelf, picked up the box with the letters—she had never found time to attach a rose, but maybe Sophie could make a decoration that would be even prettier—turned to go down the ladder again, and then stopped.

It was true that she had been selfish, she thought, keeping such a treasure so secret for all this time; it would be a nice gesture now to bring down not only the letters, but just a couple of items from the little case of souvenirs to give her sisters a taste of what was there. Nothing big—she had the box and couldn’t carry a lot more—but maybe just four small things, one to represent each sister.

She set the letters box down, switched on the light, and went to open the case. The kid gloves, she now knew, had belonged to Meg; the piano music to Beth; the drawings to Amy. But what would have been Jo’s? Jo had not been good, Lulu had gathered, with possessions; there had been frequent references in the letters to objects broken or lost, and looking through the collection, Lulu realized now how few surviving items seemed to have belonged to her great-great-grandmother. The copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress would have to do, she decided at last, impossibly battered and broken as it was, with the inscription on the flyleaf all but faded away, its words more or less indecipherable but for three: “Jo,” “Marmee,” and what had apparently once been “Christmas.” At least its state demonstrated that its owner had enjoyed reading it. She lifted it, very gingerly, from the leather case and set it carefully on top of Amy’s sketch of Marmee.

As she did so, another envelope fell from the book’s back cover. Lulu bent to pick it up: it was thicker and more modern than those in the box, and addressed in a far shakier writing, but Lulu could tell from a glance that this, too, was Jo’s hand. She took it to the window for light, looked at the front of the envelope, and blinked in astonishment. It was addressed “To My Great-Great-Granddaughter.”