There were posters of athletes and poets, a framed poem by William Butler Yeats that ended with the words I sigh that kiss you, for I must own, that I shall miss you when you have grown, which he’d given her on her fifth birthday, and which he’d often whispered to her as she fell into sleep. There were photographs of her various soccer and softball teams, and a framed prom picture, taken in that precise moment of teenage perfection, when her dress clung to her every newfound curve, her hair dropped perfectly to her bare shoulders, and her skin glowed. Scott Freeman realized that what he was looking out upon was the collected stuff of memories, childhood documented in typical fashion, probably no different from any other young person’s room, but unique in its own way. An archaeology of growing up.

There was one picture of the three of them, taken when Ashley was six, perhaps a month before her mother left him. It had been on a family vacation to the shore, and he thought the smiles they all wore had a helpless undercurrent to them, for they only barely masked the tension that had dominated their lives. Ashley had built a sand castle with her mother that day. The rising tide and waves poured over their every effort, washing every structure aside despite their frantic digging of moats and pushing together of sand walls.

He searched the walls and desk and bureau top, and he could see no sign of anything even the slightest bit out of place. This worried him more.

Scott looked down at the letter. No one could ever love you like I do.

He shook his head. That was untrue, he thought. Everyone loved Ashley.

What frightened him was the notion that someone could believe the sentiment expressed in the letter. For a moment, he tried again to tell himself that he was being foolish and overprotective. Ashley was no longer a teenager, no longer even a college student. She was on the verge of joining a graduate program in art history in Boston and had her own life.