Cary would be seventeen. "Is Cary a senior?"
"Yes. Laura would have been the class valedictorian and have made the speech on graduation day. Everyone says so."
I looked more closely at the girl in the photograph. Aunt Sara was right. Laura had been very pretty. She had Cary's eyes and they had similar noses and mouths, with the exact same shade of dark brown hair. Laura's features were smaller, feminine, dainty. She looked about my height and weight, but not as full as I in the bosom. Staring at the photograph, I understood why Uncle Jacob told Aunt Sara the angels were jealous, however. Laura had a glow in her face, a soft, spiritual quality that made her look as if any moment she might sprout angel wings and fly away.
"She was very pretty," I said.
"Yes."
"And who is this?" I picked up a wallet-size photograph of a brown-haired boy that was wedged in the frame of Laura's sweet sixteen photograph. He was handsome.
"That was Robert Royce," Aunt Sara said. She sighed yet again. "He was taken along with Laura that terrible day."
"Oh. How horrible!"
"How horrible," Aunt Sara parroted. She gazed around the room. "I haven't touched anything in here except to dust and clean. It's just as it was the day she died. Please try to keep everything where it is, Melody dear. Put everything back exactly where you found it. But as I said, use whatever you want.
"I suppose you could use a little rest after traveling so long and so far. Dinner is in an hour. Jacob likes us all to look nice come the evening meal. I left this drawer for you to put your own things in," she said showing me the third drawer in the dresser, "and you can find enough space in the closet for what you have brought, I'm sure."
"Mommy said she was going to have my other things sent," I said.
"Until she does, use these things," Aunt Sara said gesturing at everything. "Tomorrow morning," she continued, "I will take you to the school to get you enrolled. It's not far. You can walk home with Cary and May every day, just as Laura did."
Aunt Sara turned, paused in the doorway, and then marched back to the closet.
"I might suggest something for you to wear to dinner." She sifted through Laura's garments. "Now this, yes, this would be perfect." She held out a blue dress with a white collar and white cuffs on the threequarter sleeves.
"It looks as if it might be tight here," I said holding my hands on my ribs.
"Oh no, it won't be. This material gives a bit, but even if it is, I'll let it out for you. I'm a talented seamstress," she added with a laugh. "I used to adjust all of Laura's clothes. I made her this dress." She pulled a pink taffeta off its hanger to show me. "She wore this to a school dance."
"It's nice."
"Perhaps you'll wear it to a school dance, too." She gazed at it a moment before returning it to the closet. She hung it between the exact same two dresses, right where it had hung before she retrieved it to show me.
She lay the blue dress on the bed and stepped back.
"What size is your foot?"
I told her. She looked disappointed.
"Laura had smaller feet. It's a shame for you not to be able to use any of her shoes."
"Maybe May will get to wear them," l suggested.
"Yes," she whispered, looking heartbroken. "Anyway," she said, "I'm sure the dress will fit. Welcome to our home, dear."
Before leaving, she again paused in the doorway.
"It's so wonderful knowing all these things will be used and loved again. It's almost as if. . . as if Laura sent you to us." She smiled at me and left.
A chill passed through my breast. I felt like an intruder in this bedroom. It was still Laura's room. My small suitcases were stacked beside each other against the wall and my fiddle in its case was resting on top of them. There was so little of me here, so much of Laura.
I unpacked, putting my own stuffed cat next to the one already on the bed. They looked as if they'd come from the same litter. I put my teddy bear above them on the pillow, too. Then I hung up what clothes I had brought and used the drawer Aunt Sara had cleared for me.
When I was finished, I went to the window and stared out at the ocean and the beach. Cary and Uncle Jacob walked back from the dock. Cary still had his shirt off and had tossed it over his shoulder. His shoulder gleamed in the sunlight as he plodded along with his head down. Uncle Jacob appeared to be lecturing him about something.
Suddenly, as if he knew my eyes were upon him, Cary gazed up at the window and for a strange moment, it was as if Laura herself were gazing up at me through his emerald eyes.