I went to the hallway closet to find a replacement bulb for the lamp beside the sofa. The closet was deep, filled with old winter coats, tennis rackets, and cardboard boxes of holiday decorations we rarely opened.
Behind a dusty storage box containing old tax returns, my hand brushed something hard and plastic. I pulled it out.
It was a faded pink plastic beach shovel, its handle slightly bent. It had cost maybe two dollars at a grocery store near the state park during our one brief trip to the public beach years ago.
Sophie came down the stairs, her bare feet silent on the wood. She stopped when she saw what I was holding.
“I remember that,” she said, her voice small.
“You were four,” I said, wiping a thin layer of grey dust from the plastic scoop. “You refused to leave the sand without it.”
“I thought we lost it,” Sophie said. She reached out and took the shovel from my hands, her thumb immediately tracing the scratched plastic.
“We should throw it out,” I said. “The handle is warped.”
