The look on Evan’s face freaks me out, and I suddenly toss it toward him as if I’ve lost all control of my body.

Evan’s scream matches my own.

“Sorry, Facebookers,” Evan says, moving toward the mysterious item with his cell aimed directly at it. He kneels and says, “I think it’s a cow’s foot.” Evan turns his cell back toward me.

“What else is in there?” he asks.

“More of the same,” I say, reaching into the box and pulling out another one that looks exactly like the first.

“What do you think it is?” Evan says, his voice now panicky.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I just know I want to get the hell out of here.”

TWENTY-FIVE

Evan and I are seated on the leather couch in the living room, legs crossed, facing one another, camp blankets draped over our laps. We are on our cells furiously Googling what we have discovered, which are scattered across the coffee table in front of the fireplace.

I look up and laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Evan asks.

“Darryl,” I say, nodding at the moose. “He’s looking at those things on the table like Whoopi Goldberg looked at Demi Moore in Ghost when she said, ‘You in danger, girl!’”

Evan laughs. “You and your movie references. What’s that old-timey one you and Trish love so much?”

“Ice Castles,” I say, putting my hand over my heart as if he’s just said the most hurtful thing in the world.

“Didn’t mean to offend you,” he laughs.

“It’s not that you forgot the name of the movie, it’s that you actually said ‘old-timey.’ It’s not like I grew up churning butter and wearing pioneer dresses like Little House on the Prairie.”

Evan stares at me. “When was Ice Castles released?”

I scan my brain and then quickly double-check on my cell. “Nineteen seventy-eight.”

“That was more than forty years ago, Mom,” Evan says. “I think it qualifies as old-timey.”

My heart flutters for a second as I think how quickly forty years have flown. I remember my mother telling me to savor every moment and to not regret a thing because, in the blink of an eye, life would pass and I would be her age. I thought she was crazy and that it would never happen.

I scan the cottage, thinking of its life, my family’s life and how much history lives within these walls.

“I’ve got the answer!” Evan says, the excitement in his voice making me jump. “I’ve been sending photos and a little bit about our cottage, including all the Capone stuff, to an American history professor whose class I’m in at college. He just sent me some background and a few links.” Evan grows quiet for a minute, reading.

“Don’t leave me in suspense,” I say.