I don’t go to the city right away.

  I tell myself I’m still gathering information. That I need to be sure before I upend anything. But the truth is I’m sitting in the kitchen one morning when Lilia comes over, the way she does on Wednesdays, and she has the box with her.

  She sets it on the table.

  “I’ve been going through some old things,” she says. “There’s this stuff from a friend of mine I told you about. The one who gave me things before she left.”

  I remember. A few months ago. Lilia at this same table saying the best friend she’d ever had disappeared without explanation. I watched my face do something I couldn’t control and I reached for my cup.

  “I keep taking it down and putting it back,” Lilia says. “I don’t know what to do with it.”

  She opens the box. She takes out a book, a small ceramic thing, a photograph.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I look at the photograph.

  A young woman, laughing. A trip somewhere, a bright afternoon. And her face.

  The cheekbones. The hands. The line of the jaw.

  My features. My features on a young woman’s face.

  I go very still.

  That’s Elise.

  “Who is this?” I ask. My voice comes out carefully.

  Lilia looks at the photo, fond and sad at once. “That’s her. That’s my friend. Elise.” She smiles a little. “Funny, right, she had this quality where you felt like you’d known her forever the moment you met her.”

  Elise.

  She was right there. She was in Lilia’s life for two years and I was here the whole time and I didn’t know.

  “She gave you these before she left,” I say.

  “Yeah. She said she was going somewhere far. I thought she just meant traveling.” Lilia traces the edge of the photograph. “I never heard from her again.”

  She was saying goodbye.

  I know that with a certainty that lands in my chest like something cold.

  She gave everything away and she was saying goodbye and Lilia didn’t know and I didn’t know and she did it alone.

  “Mom?” Lilia is watching me. “Are you okay?”

  I look at her.

  “I need to find her,” I say. “I need to go to that city and I need to find her.”

  Lilia looks confused. “Why? Do you know her?”

  I stand up. I pick up the photograph.

  “I’ll explain,” I say. “I promise I’ll explain everything. But I need to go first.”