The last night I ever saw her.
“Sophie.”
My voice barely came out.
“Where did you get that?”
She looked down at herself.
“This?”
“Yes.”
I stepped closer.
“Where did you get it?”
Her smile disappeared.
“One of the cleaners at school gave it to me.”
I stared at her.
“What cleaner?”
“A woman named Dolly.”
“Why would a school cleaner give you a sweater?”
Sophie shrugged.
“She said she thought I’d like it.”
I reached for the sleeve.
My hands were shaking.
The wool was older now.
Softer.
There were tiny repairs near one cuff.
But I knew it.
I turned the neckline inside out.
There, sewn into the fabric in faded thread, were two letters.
L.W.
Laura Whitmore.
My knees almost gave out.Child development resources
“Sophie.”
She looked frightened now.
“What’s wrong?”
“This belonged to my sister.”
“Laura?”
I nodded.
Sophie knew the story.
Everyone in the family knew the story.
Laura was the ghost at the edge of every old photograph.
The missing girl nobody fully understood.
Sophie stared at the initials.
“That’s impossible.”
“I know.”
Then her expression changed.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“She told me something else.”
My stomach tightened.
“Who?”
“Dolly.”
Sophie touched the sunflower.
“She said if I ever wondered why she gave it to me, I should look under the flower.”
I stared at her.
“Under it?”
She nodded.
We laid the sweater on the kitchen table.
At first, I saw nothing unusual.
Then I ran my fingers around the edge of the embroidered sunflower.
One section lifted slightly.
There was a tiny hidden pocket sewn beneath it.
My breath caught.
I slipped two fingers inside.
Something hard was tucked into the fabric.Father-child activities
I pulled it out.
And the room disappeared around me.
It was a small wooden sunflower.
Simple.
Hand-carved.
One petal slightly larger than the others.
A tiny crack along the stem.
Our father had made it.
He carved one for each of us when we were children.
Mine had been a little wooden moon.
Laura’s was the sunflower.
She carried it everywhere for years.
And the night she disappeared, it disappeared with her.
I sat down.
Sophie stood beside me silently.
For nearly forty years, I had wondered whether Laura had walked out of our lives carrying that little sunflower.
Now I was holding it again.
The past wasn’t gone.
It had just walked into my kitchen wearing my granddaughter.
