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themselves. Mom’s best friend Sammy had convinced her to sell the makeup, promising that if she sold enough in a year, she could win a trip to Hawaii or Mexico, a set of luggage, or the grand prize—a pink Mary Kay Cadillac. “Sammy is unattached,” she liked to say, “but she’s doing much better since Mary Kay.”
    A warm breeze pushed the scent of old fire and roses through the open window. I was still clutching Mr. Robert’s letter as my mother struggled with her bra clasps.
    “Give me a hand here, angel, would you?”
    “Sure.” I stood, slapping the letter on the bathroom counter. Her shoulders stiffened as she glanced at it.
    “The mail came early.”
    “There was nothing else, just bills and—”
    “What did he write?” she breathed.
    “You can read it, if you want.” She scanned the letter, her brows softening. Then she peered into my face.
    “We need to hide this, Sylvia.”
    “Like the souvenirs?” The night of the fires, we’d come home from Disneyland to find the house empty but full of noises—television blaring, radio on—and the first thing we did was find a place to stash our souvenirs from Mr. Robert. It felt sinister and thrilling, hiding things from our very own father, like the spy games Ali and I used to play with our cousins. I had stashed my Minnie Mouse hat and glass castle on the top shelf of my closet, behind a stack of old Highlights magazines, but my sister refused to play. Before stomping off to her room, she handed her Cinderella figurine and box of fudge to Mom, who crushed them in the trash compacter, beneath a section of Dad’s newspaper.
    “No one but us can know about this letter. Okay, angel?” I nodded, holding my hand out for the letter, but she’d turned from me and was rummaging inside the bathroom cabinet, behind the Mary Kay boxes. I could see the naked outline of her spine through her skin. My own spine prickled uncomfortably.
    “Where’s this cabin he wants to take us?” I asked. She stood, clutching a tattered Kinney’s shoe box as she moved to the bathroom door, quietly pushed in the lock. “He says it’s in horse country. With Indians and glacier lakes.”
    “Listen to me, Sylvie, we’re going to keep your letter here, in this box.” She removed the lid, revealing dozens of other letters, bundled together with tight green rubber bands. I ran my finger across their tattered edges. She placed my letter on top, then shut the box and returned it to the darkest corner of the cabinet, arranging the makeup boxes before it like a pink wall.
    “If you get any more of those, you just bring them straight to me, okay?”
    I nodded, my mind burning with questions I feared she wouldn’t answer: How long? I wanted to ask. Has he been writing to you all along? I wanted to know exactly when he’d found her again, and whether our trip to Disneyland was the first she’d seen of him since Chicago. I wondered if he would write to Alison, too, and what my sister would make of it. Would she be so willing to hand her letters over to Mom, or would she turn them in to our father, like a double agent? But I couldn’t find a voice for any of this in my mother’s blue bathroom, the muffled drone of Dad’s news program seeping through the wall. Instead, I repeated my earlier question. “Where the heck is horse country?”
    “He’s probably referring to his place in Oregon. Why don’t you write back and ask?”
    “You think I should?” A gnawing heaviness started in the pit of my stomach, as if some small, famished animal had burrowed in to stay.
    “I suppose, if you want to.” She reached out and smoothed the hair from my eyes, her brow ruffled. “Now, why don’t you keep me company while I fix this old face. Let’s see what we can make of ourselves tonight.” She patted the bathroom counter for me to hop up. We could hear Dad switch off the TV in the bedroom, clinking the ice in his drink, and Alison playing “I Am the Walrus” for the fifth time in