I don’t have a clear memory of meeting Luke Duncan, nor do I have any memory of my life without him in it. According to our parents, who learned the story from our instructors, Luke and I instantly bonded over being the most daring six-year-olds in the ski school. We were literal fast friends who had our instructor convinced he’d be sued when one or both of us went over a cliff on his watch. Luke’s older brother, Blair, was also a gifted skier and was tasked with keeping an eye on the two of us, meaning that, from then on, the three of us were always together.

Penny and I had our own rooms, but I would often sleep in the trundle bed that pulled out from under her twin bed. In the glow of Penny’s night-light, we would have long meandering conversations about everything: the mysterious adult world, the secret lives of animals, the possibilities of heaven and hell, and our own far-off futures. Naturally I already had the Olympics in my sights. We’d watched hours and hours of the Calgary games that year, though my sister preferred watching the feminine and elegant Katarina Witt to the super-G and slalom.

“I want to live in a big house on the mountain and have eight husky dogs,” I said. “I’ll go skiing every day and I’ll have a whole room in the house for my trophies.”

“Don’t you want to get married?” Penny asked.

I made a face. I was nine, Penny was eleven, already in her dreamy preadolescence. “Who would I marry?”

“What about Luke?” she asked.

“Gross. Luke’s my friend.”

“One day you’ll want to be more than friends with boys. You’ll probably want to marry Luke,” Penny said matter-of-factly. “He’s pretty cute, Katie, even if he’s just a baby.”

“Ick. Anyway, what about you?”

“Well, I’ll marry either Sean,” she said, name-checking a floppy-haired, blue-eyed boy in her sixth-grade class who was the subject of many hours of gossip between Penny and her best friend, Emily, “or Jonathan Taylor Thomas. It just depends on whether I decide to move to Hollywood to be an actress.”

Penny’s vision for her future was as malleable as most kids’. One day, she wanted to be an actress; the next, a veterinarian; the next, an airline stewardess.

“And I definitely want to have lots of kids.”

“Like the Kimballs?” I asked.