"I need primary sources," she says without looking up. "Mrs. Ramsey wants original photographs, not internet scans. The library has the archive collection from when the town incorporated. Miss Frost showed me the catalog."
Miss Frost. Three times in two minutes. Lily's been dropping the name into conversation all week with the subtlety of a brick through a window.
"So text her," I say.
"Dad. I'm twelve. You won't let me have a phone, remember? That whole speech about screen time and developing brains?" She looks up from her notebook. "Can you please text her? You have her number."
I do have her number. Ellie texted me four days ago about a notebook Lily apparently left at the library. The notebook turned up in Lily's backpack the next morning. Neither of us mentioned it.
I pick up my phone, type the message, and stare at it for ten seconds before hitting send.Lily's spring break project needs archive photos. She says you know the collection. Would you want to come help? We're at the house.
The reply comes in under a minute.Yes. What time?
Four? Do you remember where we live or do you need the address?
I remember, from dropping Lily off last month. I'll bring the reference binder.
I put the phone down before I can think too hard about that. Lily hasn't looked up, but she's grinning at her notebook.
"Don't start," I say.
"I'm not starting anything."
"Your face says otherwise."
She turns a page and the grin gets wider.
Ellie shows up at ten past four with a canvas tote of binders, a box of archive gloves, and a container of oatmeal cookies she says the neighbor made. I hold the door open wider than necessary so she can pass without brushing against me.
She stops in the hallway. Takes in the rain boots by the door, the keys on the hook, Holly's photograph of Lily on the wall. She doesn't say anything about it.
"Come on in. Kitchen's straight back."
"Miss Frost!" Lily appears with the energy of a kid who heard the car pull up and spent the last five minutes clearing a chair. "I organized everything by decade. Is that right?"
"That's exactly right." Ellie sets the tote down and pulls out the binder. "Start with the incorporation documents. Photographs are labeled on the back—date, photographer, location if they had it."
They sit next to each other. Lily asks questions with the intensity she brings to everything, and Ellie matches it, showing her how to use the archive gloves, how to cross-reference a photograph with a written record. Lily leans into Ellie's shoulder to look at a print and Ellie tilts the binder toward her without thinking about it.
I stand at the stove chopping vegetables and watch them in the reflection of the window.
Maren's recipe cards sit in the holder by the burners. Her handwriting, her notes in the margins.More garlic. Lily won't eat this without cheese.I cook from them because they're good recipes, and because the handwriting keeps her in the room. The rest of the kitchen does the same thing in a different way—Lily's art covering the fridge, the reading chair by the window with a permanent dent from the nights I spend in it after she goes to bed. This house is me and Lily. Every surface says so.
Ellie sits in the middle of all of it and fits. She just fits. Lily laughs at something she says about a caption on a 1942 harbor photograph, and she laughs back, and the two of them bent over the table with their heads together—
The scenting hits me. Both of them at once. Lily's happiness, clean and uncomplicated, the way she smells when she's safe and engaged and with someone she trusts. And Ellie's—warmer, deeper, a settled contentment I've never picked up from her atthe library. At the library there's always a nervous edge. Here there's none.
The combined scent fills the kitchen. I've lived in this house for twelve years and kept it running. I haven't had it feel like this since before Maren died.
I set the knife down and grip the edge of the countertop and breathe through it.
"Stay for dinner," I say. It comes out before I've decided to say it.
Ellie looks up from the binder. "Oh—no, I don't want to impose. You've already got everything going, I should—"
"Please?" Lily spins in her chair. "Please stay, Miss Frost. Dad always makes too much anyway and it's just us and he made the good chicken, the one with the lemon, and we never have anyone over for dinner,please—"
"Lily."
