I lugged my suitcase into the room and put it down on a luggage rack, which was squeezed in between two huge dressers. The drawers of the dressers were stuffed full of sweaters and jewelry boxes and table linens. The closets were stuffed full of wool suits and cocktail dresses. The closet shelf was stuffed full of hatboxes and leather handbags. The floor of the closet was stuffed full of shoeboxes. “I’m sorry everything’s so crowded,” Aunt Gaye said. “When Marvin was alive we had a big house in Buckhead. I couldn’t live there after he passed away.” She was behind me in the doorway. She put one hand against the door frame and the other to her brow. “We had a wonderful marriage.”

“How did he die?”

“He had a heart attack. At his office.” She sat down on the bed. Looked down at her hands, then up at me as if to beg forgiveness. “I didn’t get to say goodbye. He died before they got him to the hospital. It’s been three years. I should throw all this away.” She pulled open a drawer of one of the dressers and began to take out stacks of table napkins and put them on the dresser top, which was already crowded with framed photographs and shepherdess lamps and china powder boxes. The photographs were of Aunt Gaye and a man, at the races, on a sailboat, under a tree, in a studio dressed in dark city clothes, holding hands.

“Is that Marvin?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“You don’t have any children?”

“No. Thank goodness for Rose’s boys. They’re so dear to me, especially Malcolm. Are you in love with him, Rhoda?”

“Yes, I am. I broke up with him and we didn’t see each other for a long time but I never stopped loving him. I guess he loves me too. He asked me to come here. I guess we’re made up now.”

“What did you get mad about?”

“I can’t remember now. I think it was my fault. I don’t remember. We got drunk and had a fight. That’s what really happened.”

“He told me he was in love with you.” She put the stack of napkins on the bed and turned and took my arm. She was so beautiful, I had never seen a woman that old who was that beautiful. It was frightening almost. A frightening, hesitant beauty. She was so gentle and so worried and so beautiful.

“Where are you going?”