at the back of her closet lifted with a soft whoosh. She’d promised Liam she’d destroy them. Tear them to bits and toss them in the river. Only once had she followed through. Watching his words dissolve and float away was intolerable. Someday, as they sat by the fire and reminisced on the early days of their love, she would pull them out and read them and Liam would be glad she’d saved them.
No one would find them here.
And it was only a small deception.
CHAPTER 7
Sunday morning dawned with a tease of summer. Emily opened the dining room window on her way to the coffeepot. Through the trees, she glimpsed a black convertible sailing across the bridge, a woman with platinum hair behind the wheel.
A different time, a different place, and that could have been her. Two years ago this week she’d driven her VW Eos to Sault Ste. Marie, top down the whole way, to meet up with college roomies for a spa day. She looked down at short, bare nails and ran them through tangled morning hair. Eight inches of dishwater-blond roots kept record of her apathy—half an inch for each month of not caring what she looked like.
The girl with the standing appointment at Studio 1 hadn’t survived the accident.
Maneuvering around boxed cupboards in the naked kitchen, she made her way to the coffeepot on the tarp-shrouded stove and filled one of the two mugs she’d brought. As she set the pot back, the side of her hand bumped a rectangular bulge beneath the tarp. The treasure can. She’d dumped the contents into a bag so Michael could use the container for Squiggles then stuck the bag back into the can when Squiggles had gained his freedom. She hadn’t found time to look through it all.
Folding her air mattress like a chair, she shoved it against the dining room wall below the open window next to her coffee, the Sunday Racine Journal Times, and the treasure can. Settling onto the bouncing contraption took more than one try, but she finally accomplished it. She took a sip of coffee and lifted the can.
She set the giant marble in an indentation in the mattress and parked the truck on the newspaper next to the Indian on horseback. Her imaginary friend in the striped shirt tiptoed in, sitting cross-legged on the floor, chin resting on his knuckles.
“What’s next?” A crumbling red rubber ball, a miniature iron frying pan, a water-damaged lapel button with a picture that looked like it might be Harry Truman. In the middle of the treasures stood an ivory-handled knife in a leather sheath. More marbles, a handful of jacks, and the tiny frog. She fingered the rustic angles of the frog and turned it over. An M was carved into the belly. Maybe it was a sign she should give it to Michael.
She pulled out what appeared to be a carved wooden baseball bat about four inches long. “Eww.” Not a bat, a doll’s arm. She laid it on her knee and lifted a matchbox half-filled with wooden matches. “Not for little boys,” she whispered.
The treasures, like pieces in a game of Clue, spread out beside her, all of them raising more questions, creating more imaginary characters to fill the empty house. Did the woman who wrote the letters play with the doll when she was a little girl? Or had the wooden arm been carved by the same person who etched the name in the bench? Did the knife belong to “Papa”? Or the man who never read the letters?
As she took another sip of coffee, her phone rang. Cara. Her timing was eerie. “Morning.”
“Hey. Just cruisin’ up the Big Sur on my way to work. Thought I’d see how you’re settling in.”
The vision sparked an authentic smile. Change the car to white and the hair to a mahogany red only available in bottles, and Cara was the convertible girl she’d seen earlier. “We’re getting a lot done. I refinished the corner cupboard in the kitchen, and the guy I hired tore out the kitchen cabinets and he’s starting on the walls. It’s a mess, but each day there’s a little more progress.”
“Can’t wait to see pictures.”
“You’re sure this doesn’t bother you?”
“Absolutely sure. Luke and I were just talking about it yesterday. We have great memories, but that’s what scrapbooks are for. If we’d wanted a museum, we would have kept the house. You do whatever will get you the big bucks. The sooner you