The Different Girl

no idea how to put them in order. What was the name of the parrot? Who was the man with the fish? Who were the men on the dock? Who cooked the food on the plate? What was the name of the boat? Which bunk belonged to the girl? Did she eat the fish? What was the name of the island? What was inside the crates and boxes? What had she done to her finger? What was it like on a moving boat? Was the man on the boat her father? What had he said to make her smile?
    A shadow fell over the pictures. I looked up to see Irene, blocking the sun. I said hello and began to show her the pictures and the bag. She stopped me and asked if I knew what time it was. I said it was more than forty-five minutes. She asked me how much more, and I answered that it had been almost ninety minutes. She said she’d been watching me from the beach, just to see if I’d notice, but I hadn’t. I told her that part of me had noticed, but that the other parts were concentrating very hard.
    “You were supposed to come back forty-five minutes ago. You knew that, didn’t you?”
    “Yes, Irene.”
    “Then why are you still here?”
    I didn’t know. I’d just done it. I’d found things I’d never found before, but how did I choose they were more important? How did I choose without even noticing the choice?
    I began again to tell her about the pictures and the bag and the beads. She told me to stop talking. She watched me for a moment, then gathered all the different things back in the bag. She looked through the photos once, slowly, and put them back in the rubber bag, zipped it, and then put that in the green bag, too. Then she handed the bag to me and told me I could carry it back. Irene walked slowly on the uneven sand, staying with me.
    The others stood on the kitchen porch. When I saw them I waved. They waved back. When we got a little closer I waved again. They waved, too. I looked over to Robbert’s building. The door was shut.
    Irene led us into the kitchen and, without a word, started making dinner. We watched her open a can of soup and pour it into a pan and put it on the stove. We listened for the clicks before the burner caught, and then the rush of the flame. Irene called over her shoulder.
    “Aren’t you going to show the others, Veronika?”
    As soon as she spoke, I realized I’d been waiting, but not for what. Irene’s permission? Or did I want to keep thinking about the girl’s things for myself? Why?
    I put the bag on the table and unzipped it, placing each item on the table.
    “It was in the grass,” I said. “Covered in sand.”
    The others nodded, staring. Isobel picked up the flip-flops, and then handed them to Caroline, who handed them to Eleanor, who put them delicately back in their original spot. They went through every object, passing them along, not saying a word, just like I hadn’t said a word. When Eleanor set down the string of green beads, they looked up at me again. I unzipped the bag of photographs and laid them on the table, feeling all my own thoughts compound inside the others’ minds with each new image.
    Before I could talk, Irene placed a hand on my shoulder. She wanted me to wait. She nodded at the others, and I understood I was supposed to watch—that this was another new thing, right in front of me. Once again we were becoming different from one another, or I was becoming different from them.
    Or I was already different, just like Caroline, except in my own way?
    All three kept flicking their eyes from picture to picture, like birds hovering over something they hadn’t decided how to eat. They were forming questions and putting things together, but again I knew something more. I knew how hurt she had been and how far she had crawled. It was a difference I could only compare to spending ninety minutes on the beach instead of forty-five. I still didn’t know how that could happen, I just knew that it had.
    The others were still staring at the pictures when we heard Robbert on the porch. We all turned to see him step inside, looking at Irene.
    “She’s awake,” he said.

3.
    Irene asked Robbert if he wanted to eat the rest of her soup. He glanced at us—we were all looking at him—and took her place at the table. We heard Irene’s feet go down the stairs and her steps on the path and then, because we were listening, the hinges of Robbert’s screen door wheeze open and clack shut. Robbert poked his chin at what I’d found, spread out on the table.
    “What’s this?”
    It took a long