The morning passed in a rhythm of discovery and decision. Grandma Sarah floated between rooms, dispensing stickers and opinions with equal authority. Michael had arrived around ten, apologizing for the traffic from Boston, and had immediately been assigned to the garage, where decades of accumulated tools and sporting equipment waited to be sorted.
Maggie found herself moving through the house like a ghost, drawn to each room by the sounds of her children's voices, bearing witness to their encounters with the past.
In the kitchen, she found Lauren standing on a step stool, reaching into the cabinet above the refrigerator, the one no one ever opened because it required too much effort.
“What did you find?” Maggie asked.
Lauren emerged with a fondue set, its orange and brown colors screaming 1970s. “This. Do you remember this?”
“Our wedding present. From your father's Aunt Ruth.”
“Did you ever use it?”
“Once. Maybe twice. Your father didn't like fondue. He said it was too much work for not enough food.”
Lauren climbed down from the stool and set the fondue set on the counter. The harvest gold color looked even more dated in the morning light, a relic from another era. She ran her finger along the edge of the pot, tracing a small chip in the enamel.
“I remember you trying to use this,” Lauren said slowly. “I must have been seven or eight. You made cheese fondue for a dinner party, and Dad complained the whole time that it was too informal for guests.”
Maggie remembered that night. She had spent hours preparing, had been so excited to try something different, something fun. And Daniel had criticized everything: the food, the presentation, the way she had arranged the living room furniture. She had cried in the bathroom after the guests left, and he had told her she was being oversensitive.
“That wasn't a good night,” Maggie said quietly.
“No. But I remember thinking how beautiful the fondue pot was. All that melted cheese, bubbling away. I thought it was magical.” Lauren smiled. “Maybe I should keep it. Use it for my own dinner parties. Show Lily and Daniel that fondue can be fun.”
“I'd like that.”
Lauren placed a red sticker on the fondue pot, and Maggie felt something shift. An object that had been associated with pain was being reclaimed, transformed into something new. That was what this whole process was about, she realized. Not just sorting and discarding but choosing what to carry forward and what to leave behind.
She moved on, drawn by the sound of Sarah's voice in the dining room.
Her middle daughter was standing at the china cabinet, carefully removing pieces of the good china, the set Maggie had inherited from her grandmother, used only for holidays and special occasions.
“I always loved this pattern,” Sarah said, holding up a dinner plate. “The little blue flowers around the edge. Remember how we weren't allowed to touch these when we were kids?”
“You touched them anyway,” Maggie said. “You snuck into the dining room when you were five and had a tea party with your stuffed animals. Used the good china and everything.”
Sarah's eyes widened. “You knew about that?”
“Of course I knew. I found cookie crumbs on the tablecloth and tiny scratches on one of the saucers.” Maggie smiled. “I never said anything because you had set everything out so carefully. All the cups lined up perfectly, the plates arranged just so. You were so proud of yourself.”
“I thought I was being sneaky.”
“You were never as sneaky as you thought you were. None of you were.”
Sarah laughed. “That's not true. I was very sneaky. Remember when I used to steal cookies from the cookie jar and blame it on Chris?”
“I remember,” Christopher called from somewhere upstairs. “I also remember getting grounded for it.”
“You should have hidden the evidence better.”
“I was innocent! There was no evidence to hide!”
“Exactly my point.”
Maggie left Sarah to her china and climbed the stairs to the second floor. The hallway was lined with framed photographs, school portraits and family vacations and milestone moments frozen in time.
In Christopher's old room, she found her son and Beccasorting through boxes they had brought down from the attic the other day. Eloise was napping in her portable crib in the corner, her small chest rising and falling with each breath.
