“Look, I’m the one who gave her the two thousand dollars to put it in layaway, and I’m getting the money back to help pay for the funeral.”

“You just always have to be in control of every-fucking-thing, don’t you, Paris? You make me sick, you know that! You’re so fucking manipulative, you think everybody’s too dumb to see it, but I see right through you! Bitch!”

And here we go again. Click. “She never ceases to amaze me.”

“But it’s not right, Paris. She shouldn’t feel entitled to anything. None of us should. How could she think that furniture belonged to Mama when it’s on layaway with your money? And, besides, there’s a whole lot of things in here she could have. If she was here to see it.”

“Yeah, but, as usual, she’s not,” I say, and leave it at that.

I ask Janelle go into Mama’s big closet first, and then I go in. After pulling them from every shelf and box we open, we sit on the floor, surrounded by purses. Most of them are black and dark-brown leather; but I see one navy, burgundy, and cream Dooney & Bourke; a cherry-red shoulder-strap bag; and an occasional small yellow, fuchsia, or mint-green silk or linen handbag emerges, and we know these were for Easter or Mother’s Day. What are we going to do for Mother’s Day? Do not think about this right now, I say to myself, as I open a green Coach bag I know Charlotte sent Mama last year, although it looks like she never carried it. It’s empty, as are the next six or seven we go through. Janelle is steadily zipping and unzipping, snapping and unsnapping them. She’s not exactly rising to the occasion, and I didn’t really expect her to. I just wanted her here for warmth.

I pick up a dilapidated, ugly brown purse with those puzzle pieces of leather shaped like cities on a map sewn together with zigzag stitching, and I get a smile on my face, because I’ve been hounding Mama since the late eighties to get rid of this sucker, but she wouldn’t do it. I slide my hands inside, and when I feel something, Janelle sees it all over my face.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know! Damn. Give me a minute,” I say, slowly easing out what feels like a bunch of papers or envelopes. When I take my hand out, that’s exactly what they are. I pull the rubber bands off and start sorting through them one by one.

“What are they?” Janelle asks again.

“Wait a minute! Here’s Mama’s birth certificate. Look at her little footprints!”

She reaches out to take it and both of us stare at it and freeze, and then we try our damnedest to sit up straight and not fall apart in this closet. I wipe my eyes. Janelle wipes hers. She kisses the birth certificate, then hands it to me, and I inhale it, and press it against my heart. I take a few deep breaths and then continue. “These are all of our birth certificates. Wait a minute, what are these? Insurance policies. Two of them.”