“It’s Thia,” she explains. “When she was a girl.”
I look at Thia, who is strangely still. I still don’t understand.
“Turn the page.”
It’s another photo of the same girl, but she’s older now, wearing a party dress dripping with ruffles. I can see Thia’s features clearly now, the broad cheeks and pointed chin, the dusting of freckles on the bridge of her nose. I look up at three carefully blank faces and feel my patience wearing thin.
Camilla touches my arm. “Go on. Go to the next page.”
The page’s plastic cover crackles as I turn to the next photograph. It’s Thia again, roughly the same age, but wearing a different dress. But something else is different. Her face is thinner, her cheekbones higher and sharper. And there it is again, that elusive tug of memory, like a loose thread I can’t get hold of. I’m annoyed and confused—and suddenly frightened.
I narrow my eyes on Thia. “Why am I looking at old photos of you? What have they to do with me?”
“Look closely,” she says quietly. “That one isn’t me.”
I study the photo again, then flip back to the previous page. The photographs are nearly identical, but on closer inspection, I see that the second one was taken more recently. The nebulous thread, unraveling now. Impossible. And yet . . .
“Who is this?”
The question hangs in the air, untouched as the seconds tick by. No one speaks or breathes. Finally, I feel Rory’s hand steal over mine.
“It’s me.”
My eyes are still on the photo, taking in each curve and bone of the face looking back at me. Aurore. Yes, I see it now. I flick a glance at Thia, then Rory, then look at the photo again.
“I don’t understand. How . . .”
Rory still has hold of my hand. She squeezes tightly. “We’re related,” she says very carefully. “Thia and I . . . are related.”
Static fills my head, a scratchy white noise crowding out my thoughts. I can’t wrap my brain around what she’s just said, can’t find the questions I need to ask. Why won’t Rory let go of my hand? Why does Thia look like she’s afraid to exhale? And why is Camilla crying?
“Related . . . how?” I manage finally.
“I’m her grandniece.” She sits blinking at me, waiting for me to say something. When I don’t, she presses me. “Do you understand what that means?”
“No.” I shake my head, strangely numb. The thread is there, waiting to be pulled, but I can’t—or won’t. I shake my head again and keep shaking it. “No.”
“Anson is my grandfather, Soline. Which makes you . . . my grandmother.”
I stare at the photo, unable to breathe. “It isn’t possible.”
“It is,” Rory says and turns the page again. “Your little girl didn’t die. They took her.”
I peer down at the new page. It’s a photocopy, creased but legible enough. CERTIFICATE OF DECREE OF ADOPTION. In one of the boxes is the name Soline Roussel, in another, the name Lowell. And then farther down, Camilla.
I turn the names over in my mind, like tiles in a game of Scrabble. They mean something—they must—but I can’t connect them.
“Lowell was my maiden name,” Camilla supplies through a fresh rush of tears. “Camilla Lowell is the name I was given by the couple who adopted me. Before that, I had another name.”
I stare at her until my eyes fill with tears and her face begins to blur. It can’t be true. And yet her face—all their faces—says it is. “You’re . . .”
“I’m Assia,” she whispers. “Your daughter.”
I cover my face, the rush of sobs so sudden, it threatens to choke me. I feel arms around me—I don’t know whose—and then I’m rocking and keening, a high, thin gush of grief and inexplicable joy. I try to stop, to quiet myself, but the sound keeps welling up, pouring out of me like a storm. I’m making a fool of myself, and I don’t care. In fact, I don’t care about anything. Not that Anson didn’t love me enough to look for me. Not even that I’ve lost forty years with the daughter who should have been mine. She’s here now. And so is Rory.
I think of Maman, of her teachings when I was a girl at her knee, and know that somewhere, she is happy too. We cannot undo what has been done, but we can move forward—three generations bound by blood and echoes, making up for all the lost years.
I feel a tissue being pressed into my hand, and little by little, my sobs stutter to a halt. I mop my face, trying to pull myself together. When I look around, everyone’s cheeks are wet, but it’s Camilla’s face that holds my gaze. I devour it, every line and precious contour, as if seeing them all for the first time.