I was absorbed myself, at least at first. No matter how many times I saw him rehearsing, I was still surprised at how much better it seemed when he took the stage. Was it the lights and the theater setting? Or did he take the energy most people would fret away in stage fright and channel it into his performance? I marveled at how different he made his voice for each character, at how I almost could see what he was describing come alive.

And then he came to the part of the story where Scrooge goes home to his gloomy lodgings and, after the shock of briefly seeing Marley’s face where the door knocker should have been, gives way to an uncharacteristic fit of nerves and searches his rooms.

“Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall.”

There were chuckles at that, and I remembered my own brief moment of fright when I’d been searching the Trinity church basement and had been startled by the coat tree, with its own suspicious attitude.

Thinking of the coat tree reminded me of the whole mass of clutter currently infesting Trinity—in the furnace room, the classrooms, the storage closets, and the office that would soon cease to be mine. Strangely, the clutter no longer oppressed me, perhaps because I knew it would be leaving soon. As Michael acted out the confrontation between Scrooge and Marley’s ghost, part of my mind was following him, and the other half was happily making lists. Things we’d need for the church clean-out. Things Michael and I could donate to swell the estate sale. Places where we should publicize the sale.

I felt wonderfully content. I had my family all around me. The boys seemed happy. And I was simultaneously doing two of my favorite things: watching Michael perform and making mental plans for organizing a project.

I glanced over at Mother, who was sitting proudly upright in her Victorian finery and following the performance with the keen appreciation she bestowed on anything belonging to a more genteel bygone era. But she didn’t look as content as I felt. Clearly she was still concerned about Mrs. Thornefield’s estate. I hoped it turned out that some of the larger boxes held the furniture Mother remembered so fondly.

And if they didn’t—well, I remembered hearing that Mrs. Thornefield’s house had been rather run-down by the time it had come into Trinity’s hands. What if she hadn’t been quite as well off as she’d led everyone to believe? What she’d had a cash-flow problem and had solved it by selling a few of her nicest pieces?

Mother would be so disappointed. Maybe I should try to postpone our box-opening visit until after Christmas?