Tova searches the yearbook for Daphne Cassmore

Tova’s search of the Sowell Bay High School, Class of 1989 yearbook marks a decisive shift in what she is looking for: after decades of returning to the book for traces of Erik, she now searches its index for Daphne Ann Cassmore. The index gives her three page references—14, 63, and 148—but the discovery is only a lead; this moment does not yet disclose what those pages contain or what Daphne’s connection to Erik was.

The Search Begins

The search interrupts an ordinary errand with unusual force. Tova has left two pounds of peak-season Rainier cherries and other groceries abandoned on the kitchen counter; her pocketbook has been flung askance rather than hung in its usual place by the door. The neglected supper and displaced belongings register how completely the task has taken over her attention. She goes upstairs to the attic and pushes through piles of linen and china until she finds the yearbook on the bottom row of the last shelf by the window.

The book carries a history of its own. Thirty years earlier, Tova had pored over it searching for something, anything. In the decades since, she and Will had occasionally revisited it when nostalgia surfaced. Tova knows every photograph of Erik in its pages by heart. That familiarity makes the change in her purpose unmistakable: this time, she is not looking for her son.

The Index Entry

Tova turns directly to the index. Its print is so small that she has to retrieve her reading glasses from the breast pocket of her blouse; her fingers fumble as she puts them on. The physical details slow the search to the scale of the page, but her response when she sees the name is immediate. Her mouth feels numb and dry, and she draws in a hard gulp of air that catches in her chest.

She runs her finger down the columns, reading through the entries to the end of the Zs before she can release a ragged breath. The result is a single listing: Daphne A. Cassmore, indexed on pages 14, 63, and 148. Tova has found a precise, verifiable presence in the school record, not an explanation. The three references point onward, while the name itself is the discovery this search yields.

Significance of the Discovery

The scene turns an object Tova has long associated with Erik into a source of new inquiry. The yearbook has repeatedly served as a place to revisit remembered photographs; now its index offers a different kind of evidence, directing her toward Daphne. The contrast is sharpened by Tova’s complete familiarity with Erik’s pictures: she is not rediscovering the book, but changing the question she brings to it.

The entry’s specificity also defines the limits of what has been learned. Daphne’s name and three page numbers establish where Tova can look next, but they do not, within this scene, establish the contents of the pages or settle Daphne’s relationship to Erik. The search therefore ends in a small but consequential opening: a name that was absent from Tova’s earlier searches has become the focus of her attention.