But my curiosity overcomes me at the first door, so I open it slowly, reach inside, and fish around on the wall for the light switch. When I find it, the room lights up, and I see that it’s another spare bedroom. The carpet is cream, and the comforter on the bed is navy blue. There are no windows, not even the small window wells that some basement bedrooms have. I don’t know how Tom keeps the water out with the lake being so close. A door, partially open, leads into a bathroom.

I turn off the light and close the door.

I find myself wanting to check each and every door, spend the rest of the evening searching all these rooms. For what?

The next door that I open creaks, and two recliners face a large screen on the far wall. A kind of home theater. I close the door.

I manage to walk the rest of the way down the hall without opening more doors. Then I notice a gleam of light coming from under the last door on the right, just before the stairway, which climbs half a flight before turning. I listen for the sound of footsteps, but there’s nothing. The basement is almost completely silent, apart from the humming of some distant appliance.

I turn away from the steps and open the door to the last room. The floor is different from the other rooms—it’s unfinished concrete, and the room is some kind of storage area. It’s lined with row after row of well-organized metal shelves. Some hold shoeboxes with white labels; some are lined with binders, each labeled with black marker in exaggerated handwriting. Accounting boxes take up a few rows, apparently full of tax documentation. At the far end of the room, the shelves hold large plastic bins, also labeled.

When I enter the room and pull the door closed behind me, the rest of the house goes completely silent, like I’m sealing myself into a crypt. Even the distant humming I could hear from the bottom of the stairway shuts off, and again I strain my ears, listening for the approach of someone, anyone, but there isn’t a sound. I walk through the aisles of shelves, my socks scratching quietly on the cement floor.

I run my fingers along the shoeboxes, and while I can’t tell what they are from the way they’re labeled, when I lift one of the lids and take a glance inside, it looks like they are all filled with letters or printed-out emails or notes. One person’s handwriting seems to dominate—Tom’s or Shirley’s or perhaps Shirley’s mother’s. Why so many letters, and what could they possibly have had to write to each other about? Didn’t Shirley’s parents live here in Nysa? Didn’t Tom’s?

I drop the lid of the box and turn, taking in the rows and rows of binders. One is marked “Jan–Jun 1980.” The year after Mary left. I pull it from the shelf and open it—it is full of photographs tucked into plastic sleeves with only an occasional caption. But I don’t need captions for most of them. This is close enough to the time I remember, and although I wouldn’t have been in Nysa anymore, I can supply the captions myself.