Instead of answering my questions, Gram’s opened up a whole wide world of new questions. Why not tell me where she lived when she and Jacob were friends? What if the book belonged to her mother and not her? Why hasn’t Dad said anything to me about his mom or his grandmother knowing Russian?

I make up my mind to ask Gram the next morning. I shut the book and it slips out of my hands, bouncing lightly on the soft carpet next to my bed. When I reach down to pick it up, I notice a bulge in the back.

Was it there before?

Slowly, I pry open the back. A seam comes undone, and I tug on a piece of thick cardboard stuck inside. It slides out to reveal a small booklet with Cyrillic letters scrawled across the front. Inside there’s a picture of a girl who looks just like me.

It’s a Russian passport, and the girl in the picture is Gram.

I can barely breathe. I look at it closer, examining each line of her face for differences that might give an explanation. I poke the space where the passport was hidden, fishing my finger in the pocket and feeling the hard edge of another booklet. I find a pencil and use the edge to work it out.

Another passport slips free, but this one has a French seal on the cover. The picture inside is of Gram as a young woman, about the age my mom is now.

I’m sweating. I can’t ask Gram any of this. Not without knowing what this even is. I sink to the ground and clutch the passports to my chest. The pencil I used to pry them out rolls along the floor away from me.

Dad has to know something about this. If I find out what he knows, then I’ll know what to ask Gram without her getting upset or sad… or forgetting who I am.

I close my eyes. Dad told me once that Gram used to travel for her job and that there were times she was gone for days. He said Grandpa would make hamburgers every night for dinner. To this day Dad is still sick of hamburgers.

Finding Gram’s traumatic memory will be almost impossible if she won’t say anything about her past. And how can I even trust that she’ll tell me the truth? She’s kept a book written in Russian with foreign passports hidden underneath the cover.

There is so much I don’t know. I don’t know what her job was or why she traveled so much. I don’t know why she never told me or if my dad even knows any of this. The more I find, the more I don’t know.

I need a plan.

“Dad.” I smile sweetly and hand him a plate of chocolate chip cookies I’ve baked. “These are for you.”