Not alive.
Not dead.
Not anywhere.
For forty years, I had lived with a question that never aged even when I did.
Where did she go?
I picked up the photograph with both hands.
On the back, someone had written in faded blue ink:
Bellmere Summer Fair — Claire and Mara, age 15.
Underneath, in newer black ink, were six words.
She never stopped asking about you.
My knees weakened.
I sat down.
Lily stopped chewing.
“Grandma?”
“Where did you get this?”
My voice came out sharper than I intended.
She blinked.
“At school.”
“From who?”
“Ms. Bennett.”
“Who is Ms. Bennett?”
“The lady helping in the art room.”
I stared at her.
“Her first name?”
Lily thought.
“Sophie.”
Sophie Bennett.
The name meant nothing to me.
That frightened me more.
“Did she say anything else?”
Lily looked uncertain now.
“She said the picture was yours.”
“Did she ask you to keep it secret?”
“No.”
“Did she ask you to meet her somewhere?”
“No.”
“Did she give you anything else?”
Lily shook her head.
Then remembered something.
“Oh.”
“What?”
“She said if you got mad, it was okay.”
My stomach tightened.
“She expected me to be angry?”
“I think.”
Lily looked at the photograph again.
“Is that you?”
“Yes.”
“And the other lady?”
I swallowed.
“My sister.”
Lily’s eyes widened.
“You have a sister?”
That question hurt more than it should have.
I had a sister.
Past tense had never felt completely right.
Present tense felt impossible.
“I did.”
“What happened?”
I looked at Mara’s fifteen-year-old face.
“I don’t know.”
And suddenly I was furious.
Not at Lily.
Not even at Sophie Bennett.
At those three words.
I don’t know.
I had been saying them since 1986.
I was done saying them.
Mara and I were identical twins, but nobody who knew us well ever confused us.
I was cautious.
Mara was motion.
I made lists.
She lost lists.
I followed rules until I understood them well enough to complain.
Mara complained first and asked questions later.
Our father, Harold Mercer, found this charming when we were children.
By sixteen, he considered it dangerous.
Dad believed the world worked best when everyone stayed where they belonged.
Children listened.
Parents decided.
Doors were locked at ten.
Boys did not wait at the end of the driveway.
And daughters did not make plans without permission.
Mara had started seeing a boy named Daniel Price that spring.
