Natalie tried to dismiss the recollection in favor of better memories. All the years of her girlhood seemed to surface as she absorbed her mother’s essence. Sometimes when a favorite book was featured at the shop, they’d try to dress like the characters. Natalie had been obsessed with her mother’s high heels, parading in front of the tall oval mirror like Belle in Beauty and the Beast. Somewhere in her head, her mother’s laughter floated briefly, vivid as yesterday, and then abruptly faded, a warning that the memory might disappear for good one day.

You were my best friend, Mom. Did you know that? she thought for the millionth time. I lost you too soon.

Let go. She repeated the phrase like a mantra.

“Giving away her stuff means she’s well and truly gone,” said Natalie, regarding the garments piled on the bed. “Oh God. It’s like carrying her out with the trash.”

“Hon, she’s gone whether or not you hang on to her things. Come on. Let’s keep going. Take pictures of stuff you want to remember but don’t need to keep. That will preserve the memories without the clutter.”

Though her stomach was in knots, Natalie knew what she had to do. One by one, she removed things from the closet, feeling the memories burn through her. The clothing bore her mom’s scent, her sweat, her stray hairs, the shape of her body. A gum wrapper and a grocery list folded in a pocket. Spare change and a hair tie in the bottom of a bag. She could picture her mom in that jacket or that skirt, that sweater and slacks, smiling as she greeted people in the bookstore.

It all had to go. These things were weighing her down, keeping her from moving away from her grief.

In an empty suitcase, she found some papers—an unfinished passport application. “I used to get so mad at her for never going anywhere,” Natalie confessed to Cleo, studying the printout. The place for the photograph was an empty oval demarcated by a dotted line. “I’d ask her why she confined herself to the bookstore. Why didn’t she ever sink her teeth into life? Why didn’t she fall in love? Or go traveling, see the world?”

Cleo shrugged. “She was content doing what she did. We both saw how happy she was with the life she had. It’s not such a bad thing, is it? To be content with your lot?”

“We should all be so lucky.” Natalie accelerated the pace, filling the suitcase with handfuls of garments, not bothering to fold them. There was something savage and decisive in her movements, a sharpness that poked through her grief.