Lisa sat on the floor of her old room, staring at the box that

lay in front of her. It was an old shoe box that he had decorated to

become a memory box many years before. Stickers and penciled flowers

covered the top and sides. its edges were worn, the corners of the lid

taped so as to keep their shape. It had been three years since Lisa last

opened the box. A sudden move to Boston had kept her from packing it.

But now that she was back home, she took the time to look again at the

memories.

Fingering the corners of the box and stroking its cover, Lisa

pictured in her mind what was inside. There was a photo of the

family trip to the Grand Canyon, a note from her friend telling her

that Nick Bicotti liked her, and the Indianarrowhead she had found while

on her senior class trip. One bye one, she remembered the items in the

box, lingering over the sweetest, until she came to the last and only

painful memory. She knew what it looked like--a single sheet of

paper upon which lines had been drawn to form boxes, 490 of them to be

exact. And each box contained a check mark, one for each time.