Caroline remained quiet.
She crossed the kitchen and opened a drawer beside the stove.
Inside was an assortment of metal cookie cutters.
Hearts.
Flowers.
Animals.
Apples.
And one little star.
My breath caught.
It looked exactly like the star Frank had used every Sunday throughout my childhood.
“Where did you get that?”
Caroline picked it up gently.
“It belonged to Frank.”
“No. His is at my house.”
“He had two, dear,” she said.
Beneath the cutters was an old photograph.
Caroline lifted it out and passed it to me.
A little girl was standing beside a kitchen table, grinning over a plate piled with star-shaped apple pancakes.
She appeared to be around five.
Behind her stood Frank.
He was younger.
Thinner.
And smiling with a kind of happiness I had never seen in any photograph of him.
“Who is she?”
Caroline’s voice trembled.
“Her name was Miley.”
