Leaves drifted outside the window. It was Saturday: Aunt Cora’s birthday.

Gideon came up the path with a chocolate cake from a bakery near the ferry stop on the mainland.

“Surprise!” he boomed as he opened the kitchen door.

I knew Aunt Cora really wasn’t surprised. We did this every year. But she opened her eyes wide, and covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, my. I can’t believe it.”

She opened the box he handed to her. I leaned forward to see. It was a necklace with a motorcycle dangling from the silver chain. She looked at me, smiled, then leaned over to hug Gideon. “I love it. It’s the only speed you’ll get from me!”

She loved the book a friend had sent too, and she always had tears in her eyes when she opened my present.

This year I’d found a jasmine plant covered with white blossoms on Windy Hill. I’d potted it up in a yellow planter from the shed, and covered the whole thing with Christmas paper turned inside out, and two of my gold hair ribbons.

“Oh, Jubilee,” she said. “You are everything to me.”

That made me think of Gideon wanting to be a family. I had to give him the cartoon I’d made.

I’d done something else. I’d sneaked Aunt Cora’s birthday cards out of the mailbox during the week so she could open them all at once. One of them was from my mother. I’d seen that handwriting dozens of times.

Usually she read all of them aloud.

But not this time.

She read my mother’s card, then tucked it under her plate and went on to show us the others.

After we ate, I went outside to give Dog a birthday treat, a double dog biscuit, thinking about that card.

It was still there when I came back, and Aunt Cora had gone to check on the altar flowers for tomorrow’s Mass. And Gideon had gone to the ferry.

I took everything else off the table—crumpled napkins, glasses, the cake plates—until there was nothing left but Aunt Cora’s plate with the envelope tucked underneath.

I couldn’t leave them there.

I wiped my sticky hands on a birthday napkin. Why was I sure the card was from my mother? The return address was in the town where the ferry docked on the mainland.

Would Aunt Cora mind if I looked at it?

She never minded anything I did. I love you, Jubilee. I’ve never loved anyone as much as you.

I slid the plate out of the way and picked up the card.

That’s what it was.

A birthday card from Amber. Amber, my mother.

Her handwriting was big and loopy and the is were dotted with circles:

Dear Cora,

You know I can’t stay in one place very long. Now I’ve come back to Maine, to Smith Street. I have a job in a bookstore. I miss my girl. I wish things had been different. I don’t know if you want to tell her that I’m here from California.

If you think it might upset her, then don’t. I leave it up to you.

Love,

Amber

I sank onto the chair. I was the girl Amber missed. She was the mother who wished things had been different. That’s what I wished.

I put the card back under the plate, even though they looked strange on the bare table. But they were blurry now; my eyes were filled, my throat tight.

I went down the hall to my bedroom and opened the window wide so the sea air could blow over my face.

Then I lay down with Dog until Aunt Cora came home. I heard her begin dinner, the refrigerator door opening and closing, the pots rattling on the stove.

I knew she was putting my mother’s card away somewhere. She must have been trying to decide what to do. And knowing Aunt Cora, it would take a long time. Too long.

How could I wait?