Finding the Way Back (21 page)

I went upstairs to open more windows, hoping
to get a cross breeze going. Struggling again with the old windows,
I finally was able to wrestle the bathroom and extra bedroom
windows open. I ran downstairs and quickly showered, got dressed
then braided my hair. Now I was ready to tackle the boxes in my
bedroom. Maybe I could actually sleep in the room tonight since
there had been less activity.

It wasn’t long before Connie joined me, ready
with her notebook and pen. “Hey, while I was having breakfast I
started some eBay listings for some of the books and things we’d
put aside.” She sat down on the bed and started jotting things down
in her notebook.

“That’s exciting, how many days is the
auction set up for?”

“I put three, enough so people who have
searches have time to find them, but not too long so they
forget.”

I looked around wondering where to start.
There were four boxes of the exact same size piled right in front
with nothing on top of them. Lifting the lid of one, I gave a
little cry. “Comic books!” They were placed in the boxes standing
straight up, each one individually sealed in a plastic bag with a
cardboard backer, organized by plastic dividers with names on them.
I read off a few. “Superman, Silver Surfer, Iron Man. These
obviously came out before the movies did. I wonder if they’re worth
anything? Some comic books are worth a lot of money nowadays.”

Connie put down her notebook and came over to
look in the box. She pulled one out carefully. “Oh yeah, comics are
big business on eBay. I don’t normally buy or sell them, you kind
of have to be an expert and I’ve never had an interest in them. I
can’t tell what year this is can you? You’d think it would be worth
something if it was only fifteen cents when it was originally sold.
He certainly kept these organized. They must have meant a lot to
him.”

“Maybe the year is inside. I don’t want to
open them though, let’s just put these boxes in the hall. We can
look them up later.”

Picking up one of the boxes of comics, I was
surprised by the weight. “These things weigh a ton. Maybe we should
get one of the guys to carry them down for us later.” We went back
and forth lugging each box individually then piled them near the
top of the steps, making sure we could still get around them
without tripping.

I pulled open the top of the next carton.
“Here we go. This room must have been where he decided to put the
good stuff. He probably felt it was the safest place in the house.
It looks like vintage linens.” I lifted up a piece and shook it
out. The material was covered with large flowers in orange, purple,
red, and blue. “Don’t you just love vintage tablecloths?” I sighed.
Digging further into the box, I pulled out at least ten more
tablecloths, each with a unique pattern. “The entire box is filled
with them and they look almost new. Why on earth would he collect
these? Do you think they were Grandmother’s?”

Connie numbered each box and then made a
notation in her notebook as to the contents while I put the
tablecloths back in. “I don’t know, but these are very popular
right now. I’m not sure we’ll want to sell them. We could just
divide them up between the four of us. I would actually use these.”
She put out her hand and ran it over the material. “I love the ones
that are really soft.”

“I like the ones that are stiffer; they seem
crisper when you iron them.” I opened the next box and pulled
another tablecloth out of the box and shook it out. It was square
with sprays of roses at the four corners. “Look how beautiful,” I
said, admiring the vibrant colors.

Connie looked over each one then returned
them to the box and hefted it out to stand next to the others
lining the banister.

I opened a third box and found more
tablecloths. I felt down the inside of the box to determine whether
it was entirely tablecloths so I wouldn’t have to empty them all
out. “What man collects vintage tablecloths?” I puzzled. “Maybe
Grandmother actually used these every day.”

“A few may have been Grandmother’s but who
needs fifty tablecloths? My bet is that they weren’t all hers. It’s
weird that he kept everything organized together up here but the
boxes downstairs were such a hodgepodge.” Connie marked the box and
took it to sit on top of the two other boxes of tablecloths. “We’ll
have to go through these later with Mom and Aunt Shelly. They are
going to love these, but there are so many, I doubt we’ll need to
keep all of them. How many tablecloths can you use? Besides, we
could make some money off the extras.”

Connie returned to the bedroom, and it was on
to the next challenge. The room had two closets. The door to one
was open and we could see more stuff piled inside it. Without going
inside it was hard to distinguish much beyond clothing, but it
seemed mostly masculine. The other closet stood closed, its
contents hidden from us like secrets. We decided to work on the
boxes in front of the closed door as that one seemed to beckon us
to explore. I really hoped to find my grandmother’s clothes
inside.

I opened an old hat box that seemed
promising, as I always liked antique hats. Nestled inside was a
beaver skin woman’s riding hat. Intriguing—we seemed to be on the
right track. The next box contained six beaded purses, three sets
of white gloves, and assorted handkerchiefs. Pulling out one of the
beaded purses, I turned it over looking for any imperfections. “I
collect these. They aren’t very valuable, maybe between ten and
thirty-five dollars, but these seem to be in excellent
condition.”

Connie’s notes continued to grow and I was
impressed by her organized system. “You know we could go into
business together after this,” she said. “We seem to work well
together.”

“My mother suggested something like that when
I started this project. I hate it when she’s right. If we tell her,
you know she’s going to do the dance.”

Connie laughed. “You mean the family ‘I was
right’ dance?” She jumped and swayed, dancing as she sang, “I was
right.”

I laughed, joining in. It was amazing how
connected our families had been. How could I have given this up? We
got back to work and I wondered just how long I could have gone
without my family in my life.

The next box had more vintage hats but these
were a little crushed and would need some TLC if we wanted anyone
to purchase them. Now I felt like it was a true treasure hunt! It
had become a thrilling adventure opening boxes to the past, each
article with a story lost in the mists of time. Connie and I tried
on the items for one another, feeling like little girls playing
dress-up. Not everything was a treasure, we realized, as we opened
a box on the bottom of the pile to find old tax statements and
bills. Our mothers would need to go through these then shred
them.

Having cleared away everything in front of
the closed closet door, we stood staring at the unknown. Was this
going to be the door to our own special Narnia? I reached out to
grasp the handle and turned. The door didn’t budge. Disappointed, I
took the handle in both hands and rattled it. The door still didn’t
budge.

“Locked? Bummer! We have to find the key,” I
said.

“I haven’t seen any keys yet but it’s only an
old skeleton lock so if we just find one key it’ll probably open
everything.”

Saddened at being thwarted from our next
great find, it was a good time to take a break anyway. We headed
down to the kitchen to look for something to eat. While I whipped
up some frozen dinners, Connie started going through the drawers in
the kitchen looking for spare keys. She pulled one drawer
completely out and took it to the dining room table where she
spread out a kitchen towel and dumped everything out. I could hear
her dropping things back into the drawer as she sorted through the
assorted fragments of things that could be thrown away.

While the dinners heated in the microwave, I
joined Connie in the dining room to see what she was finding. There
were all the typical items one would find in a miscellaneous
drawer: a stapler, scissors, nail clippers, pens, old glue, and
matches, along with some less common things such as candy canes,
walkie-talkies, small plastic army men, and a plastic spoon that
said Trix on it. Then, there were the boatload of paper clips,
screws, nails and, finally, keys. There were keys that could have
fit a multitude of items, suitcase keys, skeleton keys, newer keys,
and even car keys.

“That’s a lot of keys. Probably most of them
no longer go to anything, but some of them might. We’ll keep them
all together, along with any others we find elsewhere. Who knows
what we are going to find that we need to open,” Connie said, just
as the microwave bell went off.

Walking back into the kitchen, I pulled the
dinners out and set them on the table. “I don’t know if you’re
supposed to cook two at a time but I decided to give it a try. You
get your choice of spaghetti with meat sauce or spaghetti with meat
sauce.”

“I’m not sure, but maybe the spaghetti.”

“Oh, I so wanted the spaghetti. I guess I’ll
just have to make do,” I answered as we laughed together. We were
both a little slap-happy with all the work and little sleep.
“Seriously, we should really go to the grocery store. I need some
real vegetables.”

“I’ll call my mom and have her bring
groceries when they come over tonight.”

“Connie, you can’t do that.”

“It’s the least they can do if they are going
to come and embarrass us. You know they are going to tell about
that time you ended up at the police station. I’m surprised it
hasn’t come up yet,” Connie answered.

“I was only out past curfew,” I
protested.

Connie laughed, “You know, I think thou dost
protest too much. Too bad they couldn’t put your name in the paper
because you were under eighteen.”

I could see the potential for more stories of
transgressions I’d had while growing up. My teen years weren’t
exactly the years I remembered with fondness. Like every teen, I
thought I knew everything and hardly knew anything. Time to change
the subject. “I’m surprised, I really like this spaghetti, add some
warm bread with butter and a good glass of Chianti and I’d be a
happy gal.”

“Even better, no dishes to clean,” Connie
added.

Chapter
Twenty-Three

I grabbed a handful of keys I thought might
fit the closet in the bedroom and climbed the stairs, praying one
of them would open the door. After what we had seen outside the
closet, I couldn’t wait to see what was inside it.

“Wait for me,” Connie yelled as she finished
calling her mother.

“Tell her to bring Cheez-Its and something
dark chocolate,” I yelled back, lying on the bed to wait for
her.

Momentarily, she joined me upstairs. “Hey,
did someone say nap time?” Connie asked, coming into the room.

“Just waiting for you,” I answered. “If you
had taken a little longer I could have gotten one in. Are you
ready? Maybe we need a drum roll.”

She grabbed my hands and pulled me off the
bed. “Come on already. The suspense is killing me.”

Connie handed me a key and I slipped it in
the lock but it wouldn’t turn. I removed it and tried the next but
it didn’t work either. Finally, on the fifth key we tried, there
was a satisfying snap as the lock turned. Pulling the door open, we
both gave out a squeal of delight. The closet was full of clothing.
I switched on the light and walked into a long narrow closet that
went back about eight feet. Connie followed along behind me. The
room hardly smelled musty at all and I realized it must be because
it was lined with cedar. I reached out and lifted down a black and
navy plaid day dress. “Connie, these are wonderful. Really, some of
the colors and prints were unfortunate but still.” We laughed.
“Let’s try them on.”

No sooner had I shimmied into the plaid dress
than I heard someone unlocking the front door. It could only be our
mothers, and I looked guiltily at Connie. “Do you think this is
going to bother them, us trying on their mother’s clothes?”

“I hope not,” Connie replied, frowning back
at me.

From below we could hear our mothers’
footsteps in the kitchen. “Girls, we’ve brought groceries,” Aunt
Shelly called.

My heart was pounding as we went together
down the stairs. I didn’t want them to think I was disrespecting
our grandmother’s memory. My mother turned to look at me when I
came into the kitchen. “Well, I haven’t seen those dresses in
years,” she said, laughing.

I let out a sigh of relief. “You don’t mind
us trying them on?”

“No, of course not. Shelly and I used to try
them on as teens when our father wasn’t home.”

“Some of the clothes from the fifties weren’t
as flattering as you see on television shows are they?” Aunt Shelly
noted, turning around to check out our outfits. My plaid dress was
slightly high-waisted with pockets that stuck out at an angle
creating an illusion of wide hips. The white Peter Pan collar was
adorable but a little stark against the dark plaid and made me feel
about five. Connie’s dress was bright yellow corduroy with black
and brown diamond shapes running across the fabric. It had a square
neck and full skirt. Her dress was a much more flattering cut but
the color was dreadful. If a dress didn’t look good on Connie, I
doubted it would look good on anyone.

“Why don’t we have a little fashion show?”
Aunt Shelly said. “You girls can try things on. We’ll go sit in the
living room.”

We excitedly ran upstairs to change. My next
choice was a dark blue-green velvet sheath dress. It fit like a
glove, following the shape of my body. It was such a different
feeling for me, I felt like a fifties pin-up. I found some black
heels to go with it and tried them on. They were slightly tight but
I was able to walk in them. Connie chose a wool suit in blue and
maroon plaid with a little peplum around the waist.