“I want you to make Christine a memory keeper for her birthday. I collected all the important things and I want you to put them together.” Lily’s voice dipped when she removed a piece of flannel. “This was from my dad’s shirt. He loved flannel, said it made him all warm and toasty like sitting by a fireplace.” Her blue eyes turned bright, brighter still. “I picked out this shirt because he said it was his very favorite.” She dug around in the tray, fished out a handkerchief, held it open. “And this is one of his handkerchiefs. Very fancy. See the initials CEB? That means Charles Edwin Blacksworth. Mom said you could cut this one up because she has more.”
Mari reached for the handkerchief, traced the initials. People might not have agreed with the man’s actions or how he lived two lives with two separate families, but no one could deny how much he loved Lily and Miriam Desantro. “It’s very beautiful.”
Lily sniffed, sniffed again. “Uh-huh.” She dug out a ribbon, pointed to the lettering on it. “This is one of Christine’s ribbons. She won it with her horse. Blue means first place and she gave all of them to me. I think it’s okay to give this one to you so you can add it to her gift. It will remind her how much she loved her horse.” She glanced at Mari, said in a solemn voice, “If you have to cut it up, just save the scraps. Pop says too many people treat memories like trash and get rid of them. He called you a memory keeper, said if more of us tried to save our memories, we would learn and grow and be kinder to other people. But he said we forget and we try to pretend certain things never happened, and that’s when we get into trouble.”
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