First, get the electricity turned on. Second, clean enough of the house to make it livable. Third, find work, any kind of work that would keep them fed. The waitress, a woman about his age with tired eyes, refilled his coffee without being asked. You’re Helen Karn’s boy, aren’t you? Toby looked up, surprised. Yeah, Toby. I thought so. You look like her around the eyes. She wiped down the counter, not quite meeting his gaze. Sorry about your loss. She was well, she kept to herself, but she seemed like a good woman.
Thank you. The waitress nodded and moved away, but Toby noticed she’d stiffened slightly when she spoke about his mother. There was something in her tone, something careful and rehearsed. When they left the diner, Toby waved at an older man across the street. The man had been staring at them, but when Tob waved, he turned and walked quickly in the opposite direction. Back at the farmhouse, Tob called the utility company and arranged for the power to be turned back on.
Then he grabbed a trash bag and started in the kitchen, throwing out everything that had spoiled. Emma helped, though she wrinkled her nose at the smell. By midafternoon, they’d made progress. The kitchen was cleaner, the living room dusted, the refrigerator emptied and wiped down. Tobu stood in the hallway, looking up at the narrow door that led to the attic. He hadn’t been up there in 30 years. As a kid, he’d been forbidden. His mother had always kept it locked.
Said it was dangerous with all the old junk and weak floorboards. After she died, the lawyer handling the estate had asked if there was anything up there worth inventorying. Toby had said no without even checking. Now looking at that door, he thought about space. The house had three bedrooms, but one was barely bigger than a closet, filled with his mother’s sewing things. If he could clear out the attic, make it safe, Emma could have a real room, a place that was hers.
“Stay down here, okay,” he told Emma. “I’m going to check something out.” The attic door opened with a screech of protest. A set of steep wooden stairs led up into darkness. Toby found a flashlight in the kitchen drawer and climbed slowly, testing each step before trusting it with his weight. The heat hit him first. The attic was stifling, the air thick and still. Then his flashlight beam swept across the space, and he froze. Bags, hundreds of them.
