I often recalled the government man who had sat on the same sofa during his second visit, his thin legs crossed and his smooth hands folded delicately on one knee, and the casual way he’d informed me that everything I left behind would either be auctioned off, burned, or drowned. I had turned from his eager blue eyes to survey the parlor. My mother had lingered in each precise stitch of the muslin pillows and framed embroidery; her porcelain cross collection was displayed on the high white shelf; her favorite pale-blue vase sat atop the white doily on the oak end table. Daddy was in the shiny
...more
