Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
She and Savannah led us to the room at the far end of the attic, turning sideways to squeeze through the jumble of discarded furniture—things too valuable to get rid of or throw out, but out of style or in need of repair. Here and there, were hidden treasures, like the gorgeous antique brass bed Savannah had put in my room.
At the end of the room, someone had built deep, unfinished shelves of pine running floor to ceiling. On them were rows of plastic storage bins, each neatly labeled. Miss Martha paced down the wall, scanning the bins.
“Just let me think for a second,” she said slowly. She reached for a bin on the top shelf that read Sleeping Bags, then drew her hand back, shaking her head. “No, not that one.”
A few steps later, she bent to peer at a bin labeled Cookbooks. She gave it a tug, but it barely moved.
“I think it’s this one.” Looking over her shoulder, she said, “Boys?” to Ford and Griffen in the tone of a woman who’d called them that when they were toddlers.
Neither of them objected, stepping forward to heft the heavy bin off the shelf.
“I put it in here. Your father never would have opened a bin that had cookbooks in it,” Miss Martha said. “I’m not sure he knew where the kitchen was.”
“Good thinking,” Ford said.
As he and Griffen set it on the floor and flipped back the tabs holding the lid on, Miss Martha reached to open it. Inside, the bin was stuffed with cookbooks surrounding a smaller cardboard box.
“Is that it?” Savannah asked.
It was such a small box to hold the remains of a life. Griffen pulled the box out, the weight of it taking him by surprise as it started to slip from his grasp. Ford slid a hand beneath and set the lid back on the bin, helping Griffen set the box on top, using the storage bin as a low table. Carefully, Ford undid the flaps on the top of the box and folded them open.
“It was all I could save,” Miss Martha said, reaching in to pull out a pale lavender cashmere shawl. “She got this on her honeymoon in Ireland. He took her on a tour of Europe, and she came home with this, jewelry, and more gifts. But the smile she’d worn at her wedding was all but gone.” Miss Martha set the shawl aside and shook her head.
I turned and saw a chair at the edge of the jumble of furniture. I pulled it closer so she could sit. Everyone else here had been too young when Sarah Sawyer had left to know what any of her things had meant to her. But Miss Martha knew.
“Thank you, Paige.” She sat and leaned over, reaching into the box again. “I wish I could have saved more,” she said quietly, pulling out a tarnished sterling silver picture frame made of two sides with hinges in the middle.
Each side showed a black-and-white photograph of an infant, a lock of hair trapped beneath the glass along with the picture, one platinum blonde, and the other a deep brown. The chubby, rounded faces didn’t call to mind the adults I knew as Griffen and Ford, but—
“They look like twins except for the hair,” I said, reaching out to stroke a fingertip over the lock of Ford’s dark baby curls.
“They did, despite the few years between them, until they were teenagers.” Miss Martha looked up to Griffen and then Ford. “She kept this on her bedside table. She loved you both so much.”
With a sigh, she set the frame aside and reached into the box again. There was a small leather travel case that held a few pairs of earrings and a diamond tennis bracelet. A thin volume of poems. Shakespeare’s Sonnets. The narrow spine was cracked as if the book had been opened many times.
Ford took it, opening it to the first page. “To S, all my love, P,” he read.
Griffen looked over his shoulder. “That’s not Dad’s handwriting.”
Hope leaned in to study the inscription. “It’s not.” She glanced at me. “Do you know if it’s your dad’s writing?”
I shook my head. “I wish I did, but—” I thought for a second. “Some of the military papers in his trunk have his signature. Maybe we can see if the P matches.”
“It’s worth a look,” Ford murmured, setting aside the book of sonnets and reaching into the box to withdraw a worn bit of blanket. He handed it to Miss Martha with a question in his eyes.
“That was Griffen’s baby blanket.” She let out a soft sigh before she said, “You were still using yours when she left.”
At the bottom, Miss Martha felt around and found a small red leather box. She opened it to reveal a necklace, a simple pearl hanging at the end of a thin gold chain.