Years later, the cardboard box on the kitchen table was half-full of old spiral notebooks and high school yearbooks.
The kitchen was quiet, the old air conditioner in the window humming with a dry, rattling vibration that had not changed in a decade.
Arthur set a stack of folded jeans into the bottom of the box, his hands dusty from the closet shelves.
“We cannot keep this room like a museum forever,” he said.
“It is not a museum,” I said.
“It has been sixteen years, Helen,” he said, his voice carrying that familiar, quick burst of irritation. “We need to paint the walls.”
I stood by the sink, holding a dusty blue toothbrush I had found behind the bathroom mirror during the morning sweep.
“This was in the second drawer,” I said.
“Throw it out,” Arthur said, his watch band clicking as he reached for another stack of papers.
“No,” I said.
“It is just plastic,” he said.
“It was hers,” I said.
I looked at the blue plastic handle, the bristles faded and stiff with age.
The small green tank top had never been found, and neither had the cream-colored bag.
