I’d frightened her? “Is there something you’re looking for?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. Her face was red and sweaty. She looked… caught. Guilty. She held out the photograph in her hand. “I was looking for this.” I stepped into the room and looked down at the photo: Terri and Diane at fourteen or fifteen standing in front of the pool in bathing suits, hair wet, arms around each other, sly expressions on their faces. Two girls with a secret. “Lexie showed it to me not long ago. I was hoping to find it so I could show it to Diane.” She glanced down at the photograph. “It seems impossible that we were ever that young. Do you mind if I take it and show her?”

“Not at all,” I said.

She slipped the picture into her back pocket, then gathered up all the other papers and photos she’d pulled out and shoved them into the nearest box. “Lexie found a lot of great stuff,” Terri said. “A real treasure trove of family history.” She put the lids back on both boxes and stood, reaching for her cane.

“Yes, she did,” I said.

I watched her go. Then I went to the window and looked out. Terri was heading for her car—so much for her swim. Diane loaded the jars of water from the pool into the backseat—she seemed flustered. She touched Terri’s shoulder, but Terri shrugged her away and got into the car. Diane leaned down, spoke to Terri through the open driver’s-side window. Terri shook her head and drove off.

* * *

Diane and I made sandwiches for lunch.

“Terri decided against a swim?” I asked.

“She wasn’t up for it. She gets tired easily.”

I told her about Terri rifling through the papers in my room. She immediately snapped to Terri’s defense.

“She was looking for a photo, Jackie,” she said, setting down a jar of mustard too hard.

“I know. She showed me.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“I just think it’s odd, don’t you? That she’d sneak up there and go through the boxes on her own instead of asking?”

“Jesus, after everything I just told you out by the pool? Terri is not the enemy here.” Diane glared at me. “You’re sounding a little like your sister, looking for secrets and conspiracies that just aren’t there.”

Diane turned away from me and sliced her sandwich in half decisively; the conversation was over.

My father came into the kitchen, whistling. Then, sensing the tension, he fell silent too. He made his own sandwich and we had a quiet lunch, no one saying much of anything.

After fifteen uncomfortable moments in which the only words uttered were “Pass the chips, please,” Diane cleared her plate and announced she was going into work and then home and she’d see us tomorrow. “I trust you two will be all right here on your own tonight?”

“Of course we will,” I said, the words coming out with more of an edge than I’d intended.

chapter twenty-eight

February 11, 1931

Lanesborough, New Hampshire

Our girl is one year old today! I can scarcely believe it! Will made us paper hats, and I baked a vanilla cake with buttercream icing. We danced around the kitchen in our silly hats, the three of us holding hands while the cake cooled, the air thick with vanilla and sugar, all of us deliriously happy. Maggie laughed and laughed. She fell down and laughed. Then Will pretended to fall down and she laughed more. Will made up a silly birthday song about a little girl who was actually a bird who flew all the way up to the moon and did a little dance there, surrounded by stars. She listened, wide-eyed, looked up at the ceiling like she could see through it, all the way up to the stars Will pointed toward as he sang.

Maggie was wearing a new pink dress with white trim that I had sewn myself.

“She looks like a cherub,” Will said, kissing both of her rosy little cheeks. “I can’t believe you and I created something so perfect.”

Sometimes all I can do is stare at her with wonder. I can’t believe she’s real.

Maggie is very much her own little person. She’s always watching us with her huge dark eyes, taking everything in. She can look perfectly serious and pensive one minute, and the next, she’s overcome by fits of giggles. Her laugh is infectious—you hear it, you see her so caught up in absolute joy that you have to laugh along, too, even if you don’t know the joke.

Myrtle came by with a gift for Maggie—a little white stuffed dog. Maggie loved it at once, clutching it to her chest, saying, “Daawg,” over and over. She’s nearly walking on her own now—holding herself up on furniture and holding our hands while she takes brave, sure steps. And she’s talking up a storm, speaking her own language, which I can understand just fine. And she does speak three clear words of English: Mama, Dadda, and of course, Dog.

We continue to give Maggie a small drink of spring water each day. When we stop, her health declines. But soon, getting water won’t be any trouble at all—we’ll just walk out the back door of our house! We talk about it every day, how our lives will be once we’re there, but still, it does not seem real. It feels like a faraway thing, our future there in a house called Sparrow Crest in Brandenburg. A made-up story.

It’s somehow easier to think of it this way. To keep it at a distance.

Will has hired a special crew of quarrymen and stone carvers from Barre to turn the small pool that was behind the hotel into one nearly six times the size. Our new swimming pool will be lined with granite blocks, and we’ll build the house right alongside it so that the kitchen door opens onto the patio.

Workmen have already cleared away all the charred timbers and rubble. At my request, they left the rose garden intact. I plan to keep it going, my own tribute to Eliza Harding, to the hotel that once was. I’ve been studying up on roses, on how best to care for them. I have mail-ordered books and talked with all the best gardeners in town.

In the spring, as soon as the roads become passable and supplies can be delivered, work will begin on the house and pool. Will promises we’ll be in by the first snow.

“I will miss you all so much when you move away. You most of all, little sparrow,” Myrtle said to Maggie, who giggled when Myrtle tickled her under the chin.

“We won’t be that far,” I reminded Myrtle. “And you must visit often. You can stay in the guest room. A regular visitor to Sparrow Crest!”