By the final clearance day, the dining room had become an island with no furniture around it. Caleb had left the table until last because we needed somewhere to sort. He brought a folding chair for me and sat on an upturned box himself, knees higher than he liked.
"The drawers are done," he said when I opened the sideboard again. "We did those Sunday."
"I know. I want to check the lining."
He watched me lift the paper at the back. It was patterned with little green leaves and had torn around the spoon tray. Under it lay dust, a bent pin, and the edge of the wood. I put it down and opened the next drawer.
"Lenora." He waited until I stopped. "There isn't a missing page just because this would be easier if there were."
I kept my hand on the drawer knob. I had not told him what I wanted the page to say. Perhaps a dated receipt. Perhaps a letter showing that our mother had tried to find someone. Something that would let me take a breath without choosing between affection and doubt.
"We should be thorough," I said.
"We have been. Thorough isn't the same as never finishing." He got up from the box with one hand on his thigh. "Show me something we haven't searched, and we'll search it. But don't make us do the same drawer until it gives a different answer."
I let go of the knob. He didn't look pleased with himself. He took two mugs from the last kitchen cupboard and asked whether those were staying with me or leaving. One had a chipped handle our mother had continued to use on the grounds that it still held tea.
"Leaving," I said, then changed my mind about the sound mug. Caleb put it beside my coat without comment.
We carried the last unsorted carton to the table. Inside were calendars, spare curtain hooks, and envelopes of photographs. We went through what had not been examined, noting it as we worked. There were no papers establishing the painting's acquisition. A photograph of me at seventeen made Caleb laugh so abruptly he had to sit down.
"That fringe," he said.
"You had flared trousers."
"I still had knees that worked." He handed me the photograph. In it our mother was leaning into the edge of the frame, looking annoyed at whoever held the camera. I remembered the dress she wore. I did not remember the day.
For once I didn't try to turn recognition into more than it was. I put the photograph in the family pile. The person in it could remain our mother without answering a question the photograph had never been taken to answer.
We finished the inventory together. For the painting, I wrote where I had found it and referred to the photographs and the separate account. Under provenance I wrote, Unknown; no acquisition documentation found in household papers examined. Caleb read it, then asked me to add that the household search was complete.
"Complete as far as the material available," I said.
"Then put that."
I did. Neither of us added a theory. There was no column for what our mother might have known, and no line for the explanations we would prefer. We dated the inventory and each kept a copy.
The music notebook went into my bag. I had stopped opening its cover to look for something tucked inside. Now I wrapped an elastic loosely around it because the pages were coming away, and wrote notebook on the list of things I was keeping.
When the table was ready to go, Caleb asked if I wanted a final walk through. I went with him. The empty cupboards smelled faintly of paper and furniture polish. In the back bedroom the shelves were bare, exposing stripes of darker paint where the books had stood.
"We can finish," I said.
He nodded and went to open the front door. I carried out the mug and my bag while he dealt with the last of the furniture. We locked up with nothing discovered to rescue the story. At home I put the inventory in a folder and the notebook on my own shelf, where I could reach it without searching.