“That is a terrible idea,” Amanda said. Her voice sounded farther away. “I’ll figure something out. Oh, hey, you have a bowling ball.”

“That was up there when we moved in.” Gretchen mentally walked through her attic—a tubful of decorations, their artificial Christmas tree, unmarked boxes. “Check the corner toward the front of the house. There should be a stack of three boxes.”

“Okay. I see them.” A thud followed. “Dammit.”

“What happened?” Gretchen strained to see up the stairs, even though she knew it was impossible.

Amanda cursed a few more times. “I’m fine. I just slammed my knee into the chest you have up here.”

“A chest? What does it look like?” Gretchen searched her unreliable memory for a chest.

“Large. Wooden. Looks haunted.”

“What’s inside it?” Gretchen’s mind reeled. She hoped the letters were in there, but she also hoped it was full of discarded clothing.

“Looks like baby blankets, lots of baby blankets. Some stuffed animals and photo albums, but the albums don’t have any pictures in them.”

“My marriage probably fell apart before we got around to it,” Gretchen said with a clenched jaw.

“What?”

“Nothing. Do you see the boxes? One of them has old tools in it. I’m sure there’ll be something sharp enough for you to break into that garment rack.”

“Old tools? How are you not even forty with a box of old tools in your attic?”

Gretchen found humor in it, too. “We collected tools as we moved from one apartment to the next, back when we could only afford to buy one at a time. If we needed a screwdriver we’d buy one, only one, and make sure it was the cheapest they had.”

“Thankfully you also needed preschool scissors.”

She remembered the day Jax came home to their first apartment with everything needed to wrap Christmas presents. She was so proud of herself for only spending six dollars on everything, including scissors. “Best ones the dollar store had to offer,” Gretchen said as the memory ended.

“Got ’em.”

She listened to Amanda’s hurried steps and followed her back to the other side of the attic. The sound of crinkling plastic came next, followed by more cursing. “Your language has certainly improved.”

“I’ve learned to express myself more fully by saying fuck a lot. It’s very therapeutic. There’s a lot of clothes packed on this thing.”

Gretchen’s phone buzzed. She opened the photo and grinned. “Bring it all down.”

“All of it?” Amanda sounded overwhelmed.

Thirty minutes later, Gretchen spun in the middle of her bedroom and smiled. She felt a shift within, like she was finally becoming herself again. “I loved this dress.” She smoothed her hands over the golden material. The small navy-blue flowers sewn into the cotton cheered her up immensely. “It’s a shame we’re in the dead of winter. I want to wear this every day.”