“Oh, wait, sure. A chambered nautilus. A pink curvy thing that sort of looked like an elephant ear?”

“I thought it referenced Georgia O’Keeffe in a very intriguing way, if I do say so, which was why I selected this particular sort of shell. You are familiar, I presume, with the very unique and important contribution that Georgia O’Keeffe has made to the oeuvre of women’s art in the twentieth century?”

“I understand your fascination, and I’m sure you admire Frida Kahlo, too, and, I’m guessing here, Judy Chicago, but I don’t know what ever made you think my grandmother had any interest in Georgia O’Keeffe references.”

“You are very knowledgeable about feminist art history.”

“Not really. In any case, I gave it to one of the nurse’s aides at the home. She was very kind to my grandmother.”

“Ah.”

“Is that a problem? Is that why you called me? Do you need it back? Did it have some significance I missed? It was chipped. I almost threw it away.”

“No, no, I had just hoped that some documentation of my connection with Esther Gottesfeld would be represented in the archive inventory, for historians, for the record, for posterity. How unfortunate that it got chipped. I assure you it was a perfect specimen when I presented it to your grandmother. Had it been chipped it would have been discounted. The staff in those places can be quite careless when there is no family member present, in my experience.”

“Those people were great to my grandmother every day she was there. But what historical record, or I suppose you mean the herstorical one, do you have in mind?”

“The archive to which you have naturally made deposits of significant material from the estate concerning your grandmother’s role in history, if I am not presuming, for the historic record. I would like to ascertain the identity of the institution you have selected, for my own knowledge.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. Ruth, right? Ruth. Listen, there isn’t anything to ascertain. There just isn’t an archive for my grandmother’s personal things, which at this point in her life were pretty few. I’m sure you know about the Kheel archive up at Cornell, and the Triangle holdings in the various New York libraries, and the ILGWU files, but there really isn’t any kind of plan for adding stuff from my grandmother now. She didn’t exactly have an archive or a bunch of personal papers or anything. I mean, I still have to get into her safe-deposit box at the bank, once I complete the paperwork, which is taking forever, with everything in New York so crazy and awful at the moment as it is, and who knows when I’ll get the copies of the death certificate, and there’s no urgency about it. It’s just a small safe-deposit box, so I doubt that there will be very much in there in the way of archives, so to speak. So is that it? Is there anything else? You caught me just as I came in from work and I’m really beat and I’ve got—”