PART 103 — THE DRAWER SHE LEFT BEHIND
We took the box to June’s apartment.
That was my choice.
I did not want every discovery to happen at Grandma’s table.
June made tea.
We sat on the living room floor with the box between us.
Inside were a mug, a cardigan, several pens, and a little glass paperweight.
A seashell was sealed inside it.
I lifted the mug.
Blue.
A chip beside the handle.
The words on it had faded.
ASK ME AFTER COFFEE.
June covered her mouth.
“Oh.”
“That was her favorite?”
“Yes.”
“She kept leaving it in ridiculous places.”
“Once, we found it inside a cart of tablecloths.”
I remembered the question June said I had asked after Mom’s funeral.
Whether she had taken her favorite mug with her.
I held it with both hands.
“She didn’t.”
June understood before I explained.
“No,” she said.
“She didn’t.”
Beneath the cardigan was a small framed drawing.
A crooked house.
A large yellow sun.
Three people standing beside a flower.
My name appeared in the corner in uneven letters.
CHLOE.
I recognized my childhood writing more readily than I recognized the drawing.
I had forgotten making it.
Mom had put it on her desk.
Not in a drawer.
Not among things she intended to deal with later.
On her desk.
June leaned closer.
“I remember that.”
“She showed everyone.”
“It’s not very good.”
June looked at me.
“You were five.”
I laughed.
Then I looked at the frame again.
“She kept it.”
“Of course she did.”
But it was not an of course I had grown up believing.
That was what made it hurt.
And what made it matter.
PART 104 — THE SHOPPING LIST
Near the bottom of the box was a notebook different from the green one I kept at home.
This one was cheap.
Wire-bound.
Its cover bent.
Most pages held work notes.
Delivery times.
Names.
Numbers.
A reminder to call someone about an invoice.
Then, halfway through, there was a shopping list.
Milk.
Pears.
Birthday candles.
Chloe’s yellow boots, next size.
I touched the last line.
The small boot from the safe-deposit box stood on my shelf at home.
Here was the ordinary act that had come before it.
Mom remembering I was growing.
Making a note so work and illness and everything else would not make her forget.
On the next page, there was a list of appointments.
One had been crossed out.
Another had been moved.
At the bottom, she had written:
Ask Denise about Thursday.
I stopped.
June looked at me.
“What?”
“Denise told me Mom was thinking about staying with her.”
“Yes.”
“This might be that.”
June nodded slowly.
I stared at the line.
There was no way to know.
Not from two words.
I had learned to be careful with evidence, even when a possibility fitted a story I wanted to understand.
I closed the notebook.
“What are you thinking?” June asked.
“That I want to know everything.”
“And?”
“That I can’t.”
She sat beside me.
“No.”
I looked at the mug.
The cardigan.
The drawing.
The shopping list.
Mom’s life had not been arranged for me to reconstruct perfectly.
It had been lived.
Some of it would remain beyond my reach.
I was beginning to accept that without calling the parts I had insufficient.
PART 4-My grandmother’s savings passbook was deemed useless by my father, who threw it into her grave.
