before.
Not recently, but often enough to remember.
My father looked at me.
“Lola?”
I closed the application.
“I need to check something.”
I drove home and pulled an old storage box from my closet. Inside were photographs, birthday cards, and papers that had belonged to Mom.
At the bottom, I found a picture from her final summer.
My aunt Sabrina stood beside her, smiling at the camera.
On her feet were the same white sneakers.
Sabrina had been my mother’s younger sister.
After Mom died, she helped my father with everything. She cooked meals, handled paperwork, and stayed with him when I returned to college.
Then she withdrew from us.
She claimed it hurt too much to visit the house.
I had believed her.
I called Rachel.
“Do you remember meeting my aunt Sabrina?”
“Once, at your graduation party.”
“Did you tell her about Graham?”
Rachel went silent.
“Yes.
