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her a clue to where Kari might be and what could have happened. Kari’s small chest of drawers was covered with framed photographs, makeup, a silver comb and brush set. Pix picked up a photo of Erik and Kari. They were wearing their student caps. Erik, twenty-one—only a year older than Pix’s own son. The thought stabbed her and she put the photograph down.
    She walked over to a print on the wall. It wasn’t by an artist she recognized—Munch or Kittelsen. It was of a small country house with trees, flowers, and animals, donein a naïve folk-art style. Very charming. She couldn’t read the artist’s signature, so she took it down to get a closer look. Marianne Arneberg. Moving to replace it, Pix realized that something was taped to the back.
    It was an envelope.
    She lifted the flap and removed the contents. There wasn’t much: a few letters, some photographs. One picture tumbled to the floor. It was of Kari—Kari arm in arm with a very handsome dark-haired man.
    Kari with someone other than Erik.

Two
    But she was wrong. It wasn’t Kari. It was Hanna.
    The resemblance was remarkable. Mother and daughter looked almost identical. But the clothes were the giveaway. Hanna was wearing a long flowered dress, the kind love children made in the sixties from their Indian-print bedspreads. She had beads around her neck, as did the man in bell-bottom jeans. On the back, only one word was written—the name Sven—and no date. The couple was standing in front of a Volkswagen Beetle parked alongside an olive grove. Olives did not grow in Norway. Not much of anything grew in Norway, where only 3 percent of the land was arable. It must have been taken in Italy, or France, some other place far from home. The two were smiling. Pix searched her memory for an image of Hanna. She had never seen her at this age. She had never seen her smiling so happily.
    Pix felt relieved. The fleeting notion that Kari—with a secret love other than Erik—might not be who she seemed had made Pix feel unsteady. She knew she was on unfamiliar turf, but that this turf might suddenly suck her down into some sort of underground even more complicated than what was presently before her eyes was frightening. She reminded herself that Kari and Erik were students, goodstudents, in love, planning for the future. Honest, loyal to each other.
    She looked at the letters and the other photos. More pictures of Hanna. Hanna and a baby, Hanna and a toddler—Hanna and Kari.
    The letters were written in a childish hand, the script rounded. Pix could recognize only a few of the Norwegian words. “Kjære Mor og Far”—mor meant “mother”; “grandmother” was bestemor , your best mother, an appellation Ursula heartily applauded. Far meant “father.” “Dear Mother and Father.” The letters were signed “Hanna.” Hanna writing to her parents from some early trips with friends or her school? She’d drawn a little horse in the margin of one, a garland of roses in another.
    Why weren’t these pictures framed and on Kari’s bureau with the rest, the letters in the big antique wooden box, ornately painted, that Pix had discovered held postcards and other letters? She thought a moment. There had been some photographs on the mantel in the living room, their silver frames well polished, like everything else in the apartment—Marit and Hans’s wedding picture, Kari’s graduation photo, Hans’s and one of Marit’s parents. But none of Hanna. Marit didn’t seem the type to be ashamed of her daughter’s suicide. Was it too painful to be reminded of what might have been? Or something else? Whatever it was, Kari had kept these links to her mother hidden. Pix imagined her sitting on the bed, reading the letters, looking at the faces, wondering. Long ago, a two-year-old would have asked many questions. Where did Mor go? When will she be back? How