“Who’s Dolly?”
I looked up from the pile of laundry on the kitchen table.
“Our new cleaning lady at school,” Sophie said casually.
Something about the way she said it made me pause.
I reached for the sweater again.
It was old—far older than anything a child should have been wearing to school. The wool had faded with time, and the sunflower stitched across the front was slightly uneven.
Then I noticed something inside the collar.
Two faded red initials.
L.M.
My hands began to shake.
I knew those initials.
I had spent almost forty years trying not to think about them.
Laura M.
My sister.
My sister who disappeared when she was sixteen.
In 1986, Laura and I turned sixteen.
Our mother knitted birthday sweaters for both of us.
Mine was decorated with little daisies.
Laura’s had a giant sunflower across the front, including one accidental brown petal that Mom had tried—and failed—to correct.
Laura loved it anyway.
She wore it constantly.
