Yet once the bushel baskets waited, I couldn’t wrap a thing. I tried. But the sofa without Mother’s pillows and the end table without the blue vase felt all wrong, so I put them back. The radio hadn’t worked for years. The checkerboard contained both Cal and Seth; to bring one boy with me meant to also bring the other. Vivian’s chair was terribly uncomfortable. Mother’s desk, then, I thought, but as I delicately opened the drop leaf, I found it to still be entirely her own, the contents perfectly organized.
