Lucas looked devastated.
“I need to know.”
“We’ll find out,” I said.
“How?”
I looked at Douglas.
The answer is in the summer we were happiest.
He frowned.
“Summer we were happiest.”
I whispered, “Seventeen.”
Douglas’s eyes widened.
The year we’d met.
The year of summer camp.
The blue suitcase.
All four of us turned toward it at once.
Lucas knelt beside it.
“We emptied it.”
“No,” I said.
He looked up.
“What?”
I walked over.
“I carried that suitcase to camp when I was seventeen.”
I touched the faded blue lining.
“My father repaired it the night before I left.”
Douglas seemed to remember.
“The ripped corner.”
“Yes.”
“He said the lining was loose.”
My hands began to shake.
Lucas understood first.
“A hidden pocket?”
“Maybe.”
We removed the letters.
The ribbon.
The envelopes.
The velvet ring box.
Then Lucas lifted the fabric lining.
Nothing.
He checked the sides.
