Rachel gave me a look that said quiet was not a problem she had often faced lately.
I found the letter in the top drawer of my desk, beneath an old passport and a photograph I had never been able to throw away. Rachel saw the photograph before I could move it.
It was of us at the Schuylkill River Trail, her hair blown across her face, my arm around her waist, both of us laughing at something that had probably not been very funny.
She touched the edge of the frame. “You kept that?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes shone. “I threw mine away twice.”
“Twice?”
“I pulled it out of the trash the first time. The second time Lily found it years later and asked why Mommy was smiling at the man with storm eyes.”
My hands went still.
In the living room, the children had discovered a basket of magazines and were turning pages with whispery fascination.
