Caleb had spread three towels across the dining table before I arrived on Sunday. On one sat papers with dates, on another papers without dates, and on the third a pile he called things nobody could possibly need. He had put the smallest pile in that last place. Neither of us was good at throwing away handwriting.
"You said files," he told me. "I found files, envelopes, a biscuit tin, and instructions for a washing machine we haven't owned since I had hair."
I put my handbag on a chair instead of the table. The printed appeal was inside it. "Let's start with the tin."
We worked through appliance guarantees, old school notices, and receipts whose ink had faded to pale blue shadows. Caleb read dates aloud. I unfolded papers at their old creases and smoothed them with the side of my hand. The house was quiet enough for us to hear the loose screw in the dining-room chair each time he shifted.
The music notebook was underneath a stack of unused envelopes. Its black cover had softened at the corners, and the first page bore our mother's name in the firm writing she used for pupils' assignments. I recognized a five-finger exercise before I recognized the little drawing beside it: a ladder, with each rung given a note.
"She used that on me," Caleb said. He tapped the ladder. "I thought the top was a prize. Turned out it was just a higher note."
I laughed, then turned the pages too quickly. There were scales, short tunes, reminders about relaxed wrists, a grocery list in the back. No name of a seller. No price. No folded receipt hidden where an exercise ended. I checked the loose cover, and Caleb set his hand on the table.
"What exactly are we looking for, Lenora?"
I took the appeal out of my bag. He wiped his fingertips on a towel before touching it, a small habit from work that made me nearly lose my nerve. I told him what Tessa had shown me and what she had not claimed. I explained the referral and the appointment I had canceled.
He read the page twice. "You knew this Friday?"
"Yes."
"And Wednesday wasn't just waiting for a price."
"No. It wasn't." I kept my hands on the notebook. "I didn't know this then. But I knew she was concerned, and I made it sound routine."
He pushed his chair back, not far enough to leave. "You could have told me."
"I wanted something useful to tell you."
"That isn't always the same thing as something good." He looked toward the doorway, where a pale rectangle showed where a cupboard had stood. "Does Iris know?"
I said not yet. He didn't raise his voice. That would have been easier to answer. "Are you protecting Mum," he asked, "or avoiding Iris?"
I began to say both, then stopped. Protecting our mother made my silence sound generous. Our mother was not making a career decision on the strength of my messages. "Avoiding Iris," I said. "At least some of it."
Caleb picked up his pencil. "We can't get a story out of this just because we need one. She might have had papers. We might not find them. That's all we've got."
For the next hour we made a list. Household insurance renewal: no itemized painting description found. Will: no acquisition history. Family photographs examined: nothing establishing when the painting arrived. We did not write that the absence of a paper proved there had never been one. Caleb crossed out my heading, Things to establish, and substituted, What we found.
When we reached the notebook, I wanted to put it in the evidence pile because it was the first object all afternoon that felt like an answer. Instead I wrote music teaching notebook, no purchase information found. I put a clean sheet between its loosening cover and the first page.
Caleb stacked the searched papers in a box and marked the lid. Before he left, he asked me when I would speak to Iris. "Before she does anything about the clinic," I said. He waited until I looked at him. "I'll tell her," I added. He carried the box to the hall, leaving the notebook beside my coat.