The Photograph in the Attic

For the first three weeks of August, Imogen worked alone. She started with the leather notebook from her grandmother's drawer. It turned out to be an address book. Most entries were dated in the 1980s and 1990s. There were the addresses of cousins, friends, neighbours. Most of them had been crossed out — *moved 1992, moved 1998, deceased 2004.* Near the back, on a page on its own, was an entry not in her grandmother's handwriting. The handwriting was different — smaller, sharper. *A. Lloyd-Jones, Vancouver.* An address followed. The address had been crossed out and rewritten three times — Vancouver, then a different street in Vancouver, then a small town outside Toronto. The most recent crossing-out was in pencil. The most recent address was in ink, dated, in tiny handwriting, *2014.* Imogen looked up the most recent address online. It was a residential address. The name *A. Lloyd-Jones* did not, on its own, mean anything to her. She thought about it for two days. She thought about the tallest girl in the photograph. About the same jaw, the same eyes, the same set of the shoulders. She thought: *Lloyd-Jones is not my grandmother's surname. Lloyd-Jones is a Welsh name. The lake in the photograph is Welsh.* She thought: *if a child had been adopted out, in 1974, that child would have taken their adoptive family's surname. A. Lloyd-Jones could be — A for Anna, or Angharad,