On the middle shelf I see the basket I use every year to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters, those small heads, those open hands. Inside the basket now is Frank’s clown costume, carefully folded. There are the leftover paper napkins from last Thanksgiving; I’d only used two out of the pack of twelve, and they were pretty; I’d liked them a lot. Cornucopias.

There are the Christmas ornaments wrapped one by one in tissue paper and stored in light bulb boxes. Scrapbooks belonging to my mother. What a sad end they will have. I take one down, open it to a picture of me in the sixth grade. I had kept my lips together when I smiled, thinking it would make me less conspicuous. I remember that day so well, the girls behind me excitedly combing their hair, me staring at the floor as the line inched forward. The flatness of the photographer’s face when I sat on the little stool, the way he kept telling me look up, look up. I’d clenched my fists so hard when I had that picture taken I’d left nail marks in my palm. I flip to the beginning of the scrapbook, find letters from my father to my mother from when he was in the army. Love letters. I close the book, put it back on the shelf.

I wander past the washer and dryer, my sewing machine. I’d been going to make a flannel quilt before this all started, start it this summer so that it would be ready by winter. I look for the fabric I’d been going to use, and lay out the different pieces next to each other. It’s a nice combination of colors; it would have been a very pretty quilt.

I go back upstairs into the kitchen and open the cupboards to look at my dishes. There’s the creamer with the green stripe that I bought one day at a yard sale, and the mustard yellow plates I got at Filene’s because they reminded me of Italy. I’d always meant to go to Italy. And the Loire Valley. And Japan, too; I wanted to see those low mountains. I close my eyes, lean my head against the refrigerator, and feel Frank’s head come under my hand. “Okay,” I say, smiling. “I see you.” I kneel down, pull him to me, bury my face in his neck. He stands so still.