The first thing the flashlight revealed was a faded blue plastic child’s wading pool. “What the hell?” she muttered. But when she looked overhead, she realized the pool’s purpose. Somebody, maybe the last tenant, had decided to utilize the pool as a catch basin for earlier roof leaks. The pool held maybe a half-inch of murky brown water, and another pool of rain had begun to puddle on the rough wooden floor an inch away. A new leak. And a new headache for the new homeowner.

Drue pulled herself up to a standing position, wincing at the strain on her knee. She played the flashlight over the roof, spotting at least three slow drips of rain. She tugged the wading pool over a few inches, and was rewarded with the sound of raindrops splashing into the pool. Problem solved. For now. Until there was another heavy rain, or at the end of summer, the potential for a hurricane.

Aside from the wading pool, the attic was mostly empty. There was an old sewing machine base that she remembered from her childhood, and a funny split-level metal dollhouse that she’d never seen before, along with several outdated suitcases that looked like they’d last been used in the sixties. Pushed up under the roof gables was a row of worn wooden crates, some still bearing faded fruit labels. She lifted the lid of one of the crates, revealing a cache of old books, their covers faded and spotted with what looked suspiciously like roach eggs. She closed the lid with a shudder and moved on to the next crate, which was filled with stacks of tiny, carefully folded baby clothes in shades of pale pink and yellow. They were too old to have been Drue’s, and anyway, Sherri had never been the type for keepsakes, so these must have been Sherri’s own baby things, lovingly tucked away by Nonni.

Shoved into the crawl space behind the fruit boxes was a cardboard banker’s box with SHERRI’S PAPERS written in red Magic Marker, in her mother’s familiar scrawl. As Drue pulled it toward her, the sides collapsed under the weight of its contents.

Packets of rubber-banded canceled checks, old bills marked “paid” and two file folders spilled onto the rough-hewn attic floorboards. The first folder had IMPORTANT PAPERS written on the tab.

Drue smiled as she leafed through the miscellany of Sherri’s life: an unframed high school “Certificate of Achievement” for stenography, and fastened together with a paper clip, faded photocopies of Sherri Ann Sanchez’s birth certificate, her first Florida driver’s license, both Drue’s grandparents’ death certificates, copies of Sherri’s social security card, Drue’s parents’ marriage certificate, and at the bottom of the stack of papers, their divorce decree, dated November 27, 1988.