‘What are your plans this morning?’ Gerrit called. I could hear the tap running, water splashing in the bathroom sink.

I replied with some vague suggestion about taking more photographs I needed to return to the cottage anyway to retrieve my equipment for my appointment with Liam. But I’d done that yesterday. The truth was more complex than I cared to admit. I knew that as soon as Liam showed up, the dress would no longer belong to me. Yesterday had been wonderful. I wanted to conjure the same sense of peace I’d briefly enjoyed, before hunger and exhaustion got the better of me, the stillness that comes from utter absorption in an artefact, allowing the layers of history to wrap themselves around me.

‘I’ll give you my number,’ Gerrit was saying. ‘If you let me know when you’re done, I can take you around the island, show you some things you might remember. Places your parents liked. A sort of getting-to-know-you-again tour. What do you think?’

I didn’t reply. I’d stopped listening, my attention caught by a photograph I’d missed before. Perched on a different shelf to the others, it sparkled as though recently dusted. It was a picture of my mother holding a baby seal. Her head was thrown back as she cupped the seal’s slippery torso, and a glass bottle fitted with a plastic teat rested on the bench beside her. The seal’s expression was almost comical. It appeared to be smiling, its black eyes dancing in its fur-covered face. But it must have been the person out of frame who had amused my mother, who had made her laugh while the camera flashed. Gerrit. I leaned closer, fascinated by this rare glimpse into their relationship. It was no longer an abstraction; here was the living proof.

Footsteps sounded on the boards and then Gerrit was beside me. I could smell his spicy aftershave.

‘She was so happy that day,’ he said. ‘It was taken not long after the sanctuary opened. You must have been about six. I don’t know if you remember all the details, but we planned for a grand opening – balloons, colouring kits. We even hired a professional photographer and a mascot. Hardly anyone showed up, but your mother insisted on bringing you. She said you’d never get another opportunity to cuddle an orphaned seal, to give it the love it deserved before it went back to the wild. She wanted you to have that experience. I tried to stay out of your way. I just took the photos and let you enjoy each other’s company.’

I frowned. ‘I don’t remember any of that.’

Gerrit’s eyebrows lifted. I watched him turn away and search through a drawer.