
The jewelry box stood open, the dresser drawers ajar. The boxes from the back of Grandpa's closet were lined up along the bed, flaps open. The carpet we'd always assumed was wheat-colored turned out to be white, as evidenced by the pristine square revealed by the missing Persian carpet. If we hadn't known better, we'd have assumed the place had been ransacked by a particularly discriminating burglar. But a thief hadn't done this. It was the cousins.
They still lived in town, so before any of us knew about Grandpa, before we could book our flights or take to the road, they'd arrived on his doorstep ready to sort through his things. After Grandma died, he'd started labeling things with yellow tape, writing the name of the intended recipient. Holiday visits were always awkward as a result -- we'd all sit there, listening to his stories yet again, pretending not to notice all the markers. Once, I'd noticed my name affixed to the side of his old Remington typewriter and quickly looked away.
The typewriter was gone. So were a lot of things people remembered. The out-of-town cousins gathered in Grandpa's kitchen, trying to reconstruct an inventory by memory. Some of them were angry. There was talk of a graveside confrontation. But all I felt was empty. Like the house, I guess.
When they left, I went to the shed. Over the years, so many tools had accumulated, their rusty arms twisting and interlocking, mowers and rakes and hoses and pitchforks and rusted implements whose original purpose I couldn't fathom. But I had a boyhood memory, a narrow door in back of the shed, behind it a roll-top desk. I'd strayed inside once, before the wall of gardening cast-offs had all but cut it off from the world. I remember Grandpa hunched over the desk, picking at the Remington's keys one at a time.
It took the better part of an hour to untangle the ossified mess, visions of tetanus looming behind every semi-sharp edge. Finally a path to the door cleared. Either the doorknob was locked, or the metal had seized with rust. For all the good my efforts did, it might as well have been welded in place. Taking a cue from the local cousins, I picked up a likely looking mallet and started whacking away. After many blows and much noise, the door gave.
Turns out my memory deceived me. There was no roll-top desk. Instead, a dented Steelcase number, the kind all my teachers had in grade school. Orange with rust, encrusted with a nasty black layer of what looked like bug parts bonded with cobweb. The smell was awful. The drawers proved empty on inspection, but on the far side of the desk was a similarly unappealing filing cabinet, which turned out to be full of papers. Huge yellowing bundles, tacky to the touch. I withdrew an armful and took them back into the house.
That night, back at my hotel, a box of Grandpa's secret papers next to my suitcase, I dialed my step-dad's number. He was happy to hear from me, then sad to hear about Grandpa, then especially sad when he realized no one had gotten in touch with him before now.
"Did Grandpa write?" I asked. "Like, books, I mean."
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