She dries herself with a tea towel and then heads straight upstairs. She’s on a mission; I can feel it buzzing around her and see it sparking in the blue of her eyes. She goes right into my room and gets down on her knees in front of my bed to pull my suitcase of photos out.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, she flips through them at a rapid pace, mumbling to herself as she goes. She bypasses photos of herself, of me, of my mother and of the cottage. The only time she slows down to actually study a photo is when my father is in it, but even these she tosses back into the suitcase with a huff of frustration. There’s black dirt packed under her fingernails and a line of red blisters along the palm of each hand.

Getting up off the floor, she reaches into the pocket of her shorts to pull something out. It looks like a piece of old brown leather. She turns it over in her hands, rubs the surface of it with her thumb, her brow furrowed in concentration.

After staring at it for several seconds, she looks up, and I can almost see the answer dawning in her head. She sinks back down to her knees in front of the suitcase and begins to once again sort through the photos, slowly this time. After a few seconds she finds something, bringing it out of the box to study it closely. It’s a photo of June, Ezra, and West. They’re looking right at the camera, holding up the wood carvings they’ve just finished. I remember taking the photo.

June stares at the picture, looking as though she’s seen a ghost. She lifts the piece of brown leather up to the photo, her eyes moving between both as if looking for a match.

“It’s not him,” she whispers into the empty room, her eyes wide with shock, her lips parted. “It’s West.”

What is West? I ask while passing right through her, hoping she’ll say more. All she does is shudder and look with confusion around the empty room.

Her phone starts to ring. Ezra’s name sits on the screen as it chimes loudly.

She shoves it away from her. “Oh my god. Ezra,” she groans, clutching at her stomach and bending over as though in pain. The ringing eventually stops, but she stays as she is, staring at the phone blankly—grief all over her beautiful face.

Is this my penance for some unknown sin I committed in life? To watch my sister suffer while I hang in the atmosphere beside her, helpless to do anything?

JUNE