Susanna’s eyes misted as she pulled something from the ‘to keep’ pile. She held up a wooden frame painted blue, but a blue that allowed the grain of the wood to show through. ‘I still can’t believe he kept this.’
‘It looks very old.’ To be honest, she’d been surprised when Susanna didn’t drop it onto the discard pile.
‘I made it at school in our woodwork class when I was about eleven, I think.’
Addie realised it wasn’t just the frame, it had a picture inside and when she looked it was a lovely one of the girls together in the snow standing in their front garden. ‘That was on a snow day when school was closed.’
‘No wonder we look so happy.’ Susanna chuckled.
‘The frame and the picture have stood the test of time.’ Addie smiled. ‘So have we, I think.’
‘Of course we have,’ said Susanna.
They unearthed more of the relics their dad had kept at home or at work: the pen pot Addie had made out of half a washing up bottle before painting it bright yellow and sticking orange spots to it; the pottery Susanna had bought and painted for Father’s Day one year, making a raw-clay coloured bowl into a striped accessory that looked like an old-fashioned humbug sweet.
‘Didn’t he use that to put crisps in?’ Addie asked.
‘Yes, I’d forgotten that. He’d fill it with salt and vinegar flavour on a treat night.’
‘I don’t remember him eating any himself.’
‘I think they were more for us,’ said Susanna softly.
‘What’s this?’ Addie had pulled out a long piece of wire with a frog on the top.
Susanna gasped. ‘That was Mum’s.’
‘Mum liked frogs?’
‘She did.’ Susanna chuckled. ‘Dad didn’t. I think it was her little joke, putting a pretend one in the flower bed. I don’t remember the day he found it, but I do remember them talking about it, him admitting he’d thought it was real.’
‘Poor Dad.’
‘Keep it?’ Susanna checked.
‘Yes, keep.’ She put it into the appropriate pile, but when she looked up again Susanna’s face was pale. ‘What is it? What have you found?’
Susanna sat down on her haunches, a delicate bracelet with tiny blue flowers in the palm of her hand. ‘This was Mum’s.’
‘It’s gorgeous.’
Susanna paused. ‘Me and Dad argued about it.’
‘Argued?’
‘Oh, it was nothing, really.’
‘No, come on – if you argued, it must have been something.’
‘I just freaked out when I couldn’t find it in Mum’s things, that’s all.’ She found the little box it must have fallen from and put it inside before depositing it onto the keep pile. ‘It’s here now, that’s what matters.’
Addie was convinced there was more to the story, but when Susanna didn’t want to talk about something, there was no getting her to change her mind. She’d been the same discussing Alex and whatever was going on with him. She’d told Addie the bare minimum.
Susanna got back to raking through the rest of the box but didn’t find much else worth keeping. She held up an old, empty washbag. ‘I think this might have held Mum’s make-up once upon a time.’
‘You want to keep it?’
‘No, it’s all stained now.’ She put it in the discard pile. ‘She went far too soon.’
