Her eyes flicked toward mine.

“Nothing.”

“Then why are you shaking?”

“I’m cold.”

“You’re sweating.”

Her face changed.

Just for an instant.

Then she forced a laugh.

“God, Jen. You always did love drama.”

She reached past me.

“Give me the coat.”

I caught her wrist.

“Was this ever Kayla’s jacket?”

Silence.

Abby looked from me to Marla.

“Aunt Marla?”

Marla’s eyes dropped to her.

And something unmistakable happened.

Guilt.

“Sweetheart,” I said, “go get your backpack.”

“But—”

“Now, please.”

Abby knew better than to argue when I used that tone. She slipped toward her bedroom, looking back twice before disappearing down the hall.

The moment her door closed, I faced my sister.

“Talk.”

Marla folded her arms.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“The pocket was sewn shut.”

Color drained from her cheeks.

I hadn’t told her about the key.

I didn’t have to.

She whispered, “You opened it?”

“No. Abby found the seam.”

Marla sat down abruptly on the little bench beside the door.

For the first time since she’d arrived, she looked at me instead of the jacket.

“What did she find?”

I said nothing.

“Jen.”

“What did you think she was going to find?”

Her jaw tightened.

“This is ridiculous.”

“Was the jacket really Kayla’s?”

“Of course.”

“Then why didn’t you know something was hidden inside it?”

“I did know.”

The answer came too quickly.

I stared at her.

Marla closed her eyes.

“Fine. I knew there was something in there.”

“What?”

She didn’t answer.

“What, Marla?”

Her eyes opened.

“A key.”

The room went still.

I could hear the refrigerator humming in the kitchen.

Outside, a snowplow growled somewhere down the street.

“How do you know?”

She glanced toward Abby’s room.

Then lowered her voice.

“Because Tom gave it to me.”

I couldn’t have heard her correctly.

“What?”

“Three weeks before he died.”

My hand went automatically to the pocket of my jeans.

The outline of the key seemed suddenly enormous.

“Tom gave you a key.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Liar.”

“I don’t know everything.”

“Then tell me what you do know.”

Marla stood.

Her composure had returned in fragments, but there were cracks everywhere.

“Your husband called me from the hospital.”

“When?”

“December second.”

I knew the date instantly.

Tom had been admitted the previous afternoon. His condition had deteriorated rapidly over the following week.

“He asked me to come see him alone.”

“You visited Tom without telling me?”

“You were home with Abby.”

“I visited him every day.”

“He specifically told me not to tell you.”

I laughed once, but there was no humor in it.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know.”

“Tom couldn’t stand you.”

Marla flinched.

It was cruel, but true.

Their relationship had never recovered after Marla accused him of being irresponsible when he quit a secure railway office job to start his small repair business.

Tom had called her “the human receipt.”

She had called him “a dreamer allergic to arithmetic.”

Family dinners had been delicate affairs.

“So why would he trust you with anything?”

“I asked him the same question.”

“And?”

Marla stared toward the window.

“He said because I was the one person who could keep something from you.”

That hurt more than I expected.

Not because it was insulting.

Because it was true.

Marla and I could barely keep a civil conversation going for ten minutes.

Tom would have known I would never voluntarily confide in her.

“What did he ask you to do?”

“He gave me the jacket.”

“The jacket?”

“It wasn’t Kayla’s originally.”

Another lie.

Of course.

“Whose was it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“He had it in a bag. He gave me the bag and the key. He told me to hide the key somewhere nobody would look for it.”

“So you sewed it into a child’s coat?”

“I panicked.”

“You panicked for three weeks?”

“I forgot about it!”

Her voice cracked.

Then she lowered it again.

“I shoved the jacket into a storage bin with Kayla’s old clothes. Yesterday, when you were over and asked if I had anything Abby could wear, I grabbed the first decent coat I found.”

I stared at her.

“You forgot the key until this morning.”

Marla nodded.

“Then why didn’t you simply tell me?”

“Because Tom made me promise.”

“Tom is dead.”

Her eyes filled suddenly.

“So what?”

The question stopped me.

Marla rarely cried.

I had seen her cry at our father’s funeral and once when Kayla broke her arm at seven.

She blinked rapidly, angry at herself.

“He trusted me,” she whispered. “Maybe for the first time in his life.”

Something inside me softened despite everything.

Only slightly.

“What did he say the key opened?”

“He didn’t.”

“The tag says Box 314.”

Marla’s eyes snapped toward me.

“The tag?”

“Union Station.”

She shook her head.

“There wasn’t a tag when he gave it to me.”

A cold prickled down my arms.

“What?”

“The key was loose.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes.”

I pulled it from my pocket.

Marla stared.

Her face went white.

The blue writing on the tag was ordinary enough.

But I knew the handwriting.

So did Marla.

Tom’s.

I had watched him write birthday cards, grocery lists, repair estimates, notes in Abby’s lunchbox.

The capital T always leaned forward.

His threes were flat across the top.

Tom had tied this tag onto the key sometime before giving it to Marla.

Which meant he had known exactly where it belonged.

Abby emerged from the hallway wearing her backpack.

“Mom, we’re going to be late.”

School.

Normal life.

I looked at the kitchen clock.

8:02.

There are moments when the world should stop but refuses.