The photo I flip to next leaves no room for dispute. It’s deep in the forest of the island. They must have sneaked off to steal a moment together, not knowing May was tracking them. My mother is in West’s arms, her hands on either side of his face as they go in for a kiss.

May knew all along. The fact hits me like a ton of bricks. Why else would she have hidden these photos? And why would they have been taken in the first place if she hadn’t been looking for proof of something?

I reach for my wine and stare into the fire. The secret she kept is like a hot poker being pressed into the open wound left by her death. If she were alive, I’d pick up the phone and demand to know why she didn’t tell me. We weren’t supposed to have secrets from each other. We were supposed to suffer through it all together, or at least I thought that was the rule. She had no right to protect me from this.

The record ends, and the needle bumps up and down. I don’t get up. I sit in the silence, trying not to feel betrayed by my dead sister. I can almost hear her voice: I was only trying to protect you. Why should we both suffer?

That idea settles the hurt down enough for me to get up and flip the record. I pour the remainder of the wine into my glass, not caring that I’ve drunk it way too fast and feel light-headed. Then I sit back down with the photos.

It takes me a few seconds to recognize the person in the next one. She has long black hair, which is lifting in the wind, and smooth, tanned skin that looks as though the sun radiates right from it. She’s kneeling in our garden and looking to her right, away from the camera, showing her profile. Her green eyes are narrowed into slits and her mouth is pursed. At first I think it’s because of the bright sun, but when I follow her gaze, I see that she’s looking directly at my mother and West, who are standing in the corner of the yard, talking. It’s Ezra’s mom, Willa.

She came to the island with West now and again, mostly to help with gardening because she was good at it. Did she know about the affair in this photo, or was it just a budding suspicion? She always intimidated me. A wild and free kind of woman, she went everywhere in bare feet just like her son, could make flowers grow from sand, and seemed to see right into my soul every time she looked at me.