Then she came to Sylvie’s senior picture, a remarkable shot that caught her friend in a beautiful light. Sylvie stood waist-deep in a calm lake, the water so still that it captured her reflection on its surface. Sylvie’s hair danced off her shoulders, and her eyes burned like flames behind her smoky eye shadow.

Lila turned the picture over and read: To my friend.

Sylvie’s freshman picture looked up at Lila from the top of another stack, and Lila pulled it free to read the inscription on the back.

You are my sister

My deepest soul

My best friend

You make me whole.

I love you forever.

Lila put the two pictures side by side. How had Lila gone from being Sylvie’s deepest soul to barely being her friend in four short years? It occurred to her that maybe her mother had been right about letting sleeping dogs lie.

In the bottom of the box Lila found a stack of pictures of her and Sylvie that she’d collected over the years, spanning from when they were children splashing in a plastic pool in Sylvie’s backyard to the time right before the fall of their friendship. Lila began slowly going through them, the memories bringing tears to her eyes.

Deep in the stack, Lila came upon a picture taken the fall of their senior year. Lila had forgotten about it, but now recalled the day when Sylvie invited her to play Frisbee golf with John and some of his friends. In the picture, Lila and Sylvie sat on a picnic table, talking. In the background, John chatted with a guy whose face Lila recognized, but whose name escaped her. He didn’t go to their school, but he and John had some connection—relatives, maybe.

Something about the man’s smile caught Lila’s attention. She studied his face and then closed her eyes to try to remember. She could see him standing in a doorway, pointing at her. He had a beer in his hand and a sharp grin that gave his face an elfish quality. She remembered body odor and a sense that she disliked the man. Had he been at the party in Uptown?

Lila turned the picture over and read Sylvie’s handwritten notes: Me, Lila, John, and Silas. Silas. Lila closed her eyes and repeated the name, trying to conjure something, but the only thing that came to her was the word jackass. Silas Jackass. She could hear John calling him by that name. She looked at the picture again and it came to her. Silas Jackson—John’s cousin. She’d only met him a couple times and had always been less than impressed. Did he have a lisp? She tried to remember if she had ever heard him speak, but got nothing.

She put that picture in her pocket and locked the box shut before returning it to its rightful place in her sock drawer, the key tucked once again into its hiding place.

Downstairs, Charlotte was waiting for Lila, holding a plate of lemon bars on her lap. She looked at her daughter with a smile that begged to start the visit over. But all Lila could think about was that her mother had lied to Dr. Roberts and ended Lila’s sessions. And now she wanted to eat lemon bars and pretend that none of that had happened—as if it didn’t matter.