The dresser had two small drawers. In one was a bundle of mail in opened envelopes, from my sister, my mother, my younger self. I pushed the letters back into the drawer, a task for later. In the other drawer were a few checkbook stubs, a couple of bank account passbooks, and bank statements and credit card bills, held neatly together with treasury tags. I swept all this stuff up and crammed it into my jacket pocket. I knew I was being a coward in my priorities: closing down his financial affairs was something I could do on remote control, easily, without leaving my comfort zone.

Suits hung in the wardrobe. I riffled through them, evoking a smell of dust and camphor. They were cut to Dad’s barrel-shaped frame and would never have fit me, even if they hadn’t been old, worn at cuffs and shoulders, and indefinably old-mannish in their style. He had always folded his shirts and set them one on top of another in the shallow drawers of the wardrobe, and there they were now. Shoes, of patent leather and suede, lay jumbled up on top of each other in the bottom of the wardrobe: he had been wearing his slippers when they took him to the hospital. There were more drawers full of underwear, sweaters, ties, tiepins and cufflinks, even a few elastic armbands.

I explored all this, touching it hesitantly. There was little I would want to keep: a few cufflinks, maybe, something I would associate with him. I knew I should just sweep up all this stuff, cram it into bin bags, and take it to an Oxfam shop. But not today, not today.

Gina had already said she didn’t want any of this old stuff. I resented her not being here, for running back to the Miami Beach sun and leaving me to this shit. But she always had kept herself out of the family fray. Peter McLachlan was a better son than she was a daughter, I thought bitterly.

I was far from finished, but enough for now. I got out of there.

On the landing walls were more Catholic ornaments, more Marys—even a Sacred Heart, a statue of Jesus with His chest exposed to show His burning heart, the realization of a particularly gruesome medieval “miracle.” I wondered what I should do with all the Catholic tokens. It would seem disrespectful, if not sacrilegious, to just dump them. Perhaps I could take them to the parish church. I realized with a start that I had no idea who the priest was; no doubt he was decades younger than me.

I glanced up at the hatchway to the access to the attic space. It was just a little square panel cut out of the ceiling. If I wanted to go up there I ought to find a ladder.