She was smiling broadly. Happily.

The photograph turned blurry, danced in Leni’s unsteady hand.

Something red and blue and gold captured Leni’s attention. She put down the picture, wiped her eyes.

A military medal; a red-white-and-blue ribbon with a bronze star affixed to its pointed end. She turned the star over, saw the inscription on the back: Heroic or meritorious achievement. Ernt A. Allbright. Beneath it lay a folded-up newspaper article with the headline “Seattle POW Released” and a picture of her dad. He looked like a cadaver, his eyes staring dully ahead. There was almost no similarity to the man in the wedding photo.

I wish you remembered him from before … How often had her mother said that over the years?

She pressed the picture and the medal to her chest, as if she could imprint them onto her soul. These were the memories Leni wanted to keep: their love, his heroism, the image of them laughing, the idea of her mother beachcombing.

There were two things left in the box. An envelope and a folded piece of notebook paper.

Leni set the medal and photograph aside and picked up the piece of paper, unfolding it slowly. She saw Mama’s fine, private-schoolgirl script.

To my beautiful baby girl,

It’s time to undo what I did. You live under a false name because I killed a man. Me.

You may not see it yet, but you have a home and home means something. You have a chance for a different life. You can give your son all that I couldn’t give you, but it takes courage. And courage is something you have. All you have to do is go back to Alaska and give the police my confession letter. Tell them I’m a murderer and let the crime finally end as it should have, with you excused from its taint. They’ll close the case and you’ll be free. Take your name and your life back.

Go home. Scatter my ashes on our beach.

I’ll be watching out for you. Always.

You have a child, so you know. You are my heart, baby girl. You are everything I did right. And I want you to know I would do it all again, every wonderful terrible second of it. I would do years and years of it again for one minute with you.

Inside the envelope, she found two one-way tickets to Alaska.

* * *

ALL UP AND DOWN the well-manicured street of Queen Anne Hill, life clattered along on this last Saturday in July. Her grandparents’ neighbors were gathered around Weber barbecues grilling store-bought meat, and making designer margaritas in blenders, their kids playing on swing sets that cost as much as a used car. Had any of them noticed the drawn shades in the Golliher house? Could they somehow sense grief emanating through stone and glass? This sorrow couldn’t be talked about in public. How could they express grief for the loss of a woman—Evelyn Grant—who had never really existed?

Leni climbed out her bedroom window and sat on the roof, the wooden shakes worn smooth by years of people sitting in this spot. Here more than anywhere else, she felt Mama beside her. Sometimes the feeling was so strong Leni thought she heard her Mama breathing, but it was just the breeze, whispering through the maple leaves on the tree out front.

“I used to catch your mother out here smoking cigarettes when she was thirteen years old,” Grandma said quietly. “She thought a closed window and a breath mint could fool me.”

Leni couldn’t help smiling. Those few words were like an incantation that brought Mama back for a beautiful, exquisite second. A flame of blond hair, a laugh in the wind. Leni glanced behind her, saw her grandmother standing at the upstairs bedroom’s open window. A cool evening breeze plucked at her black blouse, ruffled the trim at her throat. Leni had a fleeting, surprising thought that her grandmother would wear black for the rest of her life; maybe she would put on a green dress and regret and loss would eke from her pores and change the fabric to black.

“May I join you?”

“I’ll come in.” Leni started to back up.

Grandma angled through the open window, her hair crunching on the frame, getting dented. “I know you think that I’m Jurassic, but I can climb out onto a ledge. Jack LaLanne was sixty when he swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco.”

Leni scooted sideways.

Grandmother climbed through the opening and sat down, keeping her straight back flush against the house.

Leni backed up to be even with her, carrying the rosewood box with her. She hadn’t stopped touching its smooth surface since she’d opened it the day before.

“I don’t want you to go.”

“I know.”

“Your grandfather says it’s a bad decision, and he should know.” She paused. “Stay here. Don’t give them that letter.”

“It was her dying wish.”

“She’s gone.”

Leni couldn’t help smiling. She loved that her grandmother was a complex mixture of optimism and practicality. The optimism had allowed her to wait almost two decades for her daughter’s return; the practicality had allowed her to forget all the pain that had preceded it. Over the years, Leni knew that Mama had more than forgiven her parents; she’d grown to understand them and to regret how harshly she’d treated them. Perhaps it was a road every child ultimately traveled. “Have I ever told you how grateful I am that you took us in, that you love my son?”

“And you.”

“And me.”

“Make me understand, Leni. I’m afraid.”

Leni had thought about this all night. She knew it was crazy and maybe dangerous, but there was hope, too.

She wanted—needed—to be Leni Allbright again. To live her own life. Whatever the cost. “I know you think of Alaska as cold and inhospitable, a place where we were lost. But the truth is, we were found there, too. It’s in me, Grandma, that place. I belong there. All these years away have cost me something. And there’s MJ. He’s not a baby anymore. He’s a boy and growing up fast. He needs a dad.”

“But his dad is…”

“I know. I’ve spent years telling MJ as much of the truth as I could about his father. He knows about the accident and the rehab center. But its not enough to tell stories. MJ needs to know where he comes from, and it won’t be long before he starts asking real questions. He deserves answers.” Leni paused. “My mom was wrong about a lot of things, but one thing she had right was about the durability of love. It stays. Against all odds, in the face of hate, it stays. I left the boy I loved when he was broken and sick, and I hate myself for that. Matthew is MJ’s dad, whether Matthew can know what that means or not, whether he can hold him or talk to him or not. MJ deserves to know his own family. Tom Walker is his grandfather. Alyeska is his aunt. It is unforgivable that they don’t know about MJ. They would love him as much as you do.”