Page 147 of Summer After Summer

“Charlotte?”

“What? I haven’t been inside.”

“Not in all the years?”

“I’d tell the cleaners to go in twice a year to keep the dust down—that’s it.”

“It feels like she might be in there,” I say.

“Yeah.”

“We can’t put it off anymore.”

“You’re right.” Charlotte pushes on the door handle. It opens easily, my mother’s scent rushing out.

“Oh fuck,” Charlotte says, and that sets us laughing.

We step into the room. It’s the same as I remember it, and also different. Some things—like the couch she used to lie on to read, to reflect, to snuggle—are smaller than I remember. The windows feel larger, the sunlight brighter. But mostly, it feels like a part of me that I was missing, and I’m not sure why I put it off for so long.

“This is weird,” Sophie says.

“So weird.”

“I guess we put everything in boxes?”

“That’s what I’ve been doing, yes.”

“Okay, okay. No need to be bitchy about it, Saint Olivia.”

I ignore the comment and walk to the bookshelves. The library downstairs was full of books, but this is where she kept her favorites. Her copies of Anne of Green Gables and Ballet Shoes and The Secret Garden. She read them to us when we were children, us curled up around her, as she transported us away to the magical worlds within. Each of us had our favorite. I loved spunky Anne. Sophie loved The Secret Garden. Charlotte was drawn to The Borrowers, liking the miniature world created therein.

I take the books off the shelf, one by one, and flip through the pages carefully. I can hear my sisters remarking on this find or that, but I mostly tune them out. With each book my heart swells in anticipation, but then it crashes back to earth again. The pages are blank, there’s no card to me hidden within. The truth of it sinks in. The card I received from her on my twenty-first birthday is the last.

“I can’t believe Lucy chose him over Fred,” Sophie says, the first words of theirs that register in an hour.

“What?” I say, turning around. They’re huddled by the window, a box at their feet. They’ve cleared one shelf, while I’ve done ten.

“Lucy. She’s dating that guy, the winery guy.”

“James?”

“Right,” Charlotte says.

“She is?”

“Yeah, she stayed there for, like, weeks after the accident, and I guess proximity or whatever. She told Colin this morning.”

“Lucy and James are together.”

Sophie’s annoyed. “That’s what I said.”

“What’s it to you?” Charlotte asks. “Good for her.”

“I thought she was good with Fred,” Sophie says, pouting. “He must be heartbroken.”

“Potato, poh-tah-to,” Charlotte says. “They’re both super-rich.”

“Lucy’s not like that. That’s not what she cares about.”

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