This is a story my mother might have told me, if she had lived.

My fingers graze the foolscap and inkstains, entranced and inquisitive. I spent my boyhood listening to her stories and collecting her memories. On summer nights too humid for sleep, I imagined the moaning of her ocean or the coolness of her sandshores beneath bare feet, piecing together in my mind the geography of Four Winds.

Now I arrive, to walk through her dreams, long after she has gone. Feebly bound, his scrapbook leaves tear away at my eager tugging.

By lamplight and starlight I search the sentences for reminders of her. And so does he. Together, we people our stories with love lost