Page 31 of Memories of the Lost

“Sounds great.”

“All right, let me work on some numbers and a marketing strategy, and I’ll get back to you in a day or two with a contract and a plan.”

Tillie loved her efficiency and lack of small talk. “Excellent.”

“Thank you so much, Tillie.” She shook her hand again, a solid grip she trusted. “By the way, I am really an admirer of your work.”

“Oh!” Tillie was caught off guard. “I’m surprised you know it, but thank you so much.”

“You’re too modest. It’s not like a million kids go to Fox Crossing High School. You’re pretty well known around here.”

“I’m so surprised.” She made a mental note to make something for her. Ink and wash, perhaps. Tillie saw her as ... a black swan? Maybe. “Thank you.”

The remaining boxes had come from Arlette’s closet. Tillie had peeked into them when she first brought them downstairs—the usual detritusof a life: photos and mementos, paper tickets from trips taken long ago, a set of keys on a ring with a scribbled address that meant nothing to her. Most of it would end up in the trash, but Tillie didn’t want to toss everything out without giving it the respect of a glance.

She wondered now if she could condense most of it into one box. She took the lids off the two top boxes and gauged the weight. Easy. Gathering sheaves of ephemera from one box, she transferred it to the other. A photo fluttered away and landed on the floor.

Liam knocked. “All right to come in now?”

“Yes.” She transferred another handful of bits, then swept the last few things from the bottom of the box. Yellowed newspaper was stuck to the bottom, folded so she couldn’t read it, and she used a fingernail to free it.

It was theLos Angeles Times, dated March 12, 1989, with the headline “Firestorms Kill Four.”

“TheLA Times,” Tillie said. “That’s odd. I didn’t know she ever lived there.”

Liam squatted easily beside her. “Maybe she didn’t. Maybe it’s just packing material or something.”

She nodded, but put it in the box anyway. She opened the third box and found it only a quarter full. More detritus—an old map of what might be a park, a ticket for a ferry. Tillie looked at it more closely, seeking a destination. “Huh. LA to Catalina, June 8, 1989.”

“Or maybe shedidlive there,” he said reasonably.

Arlette had never spoken of her life before Tillie was born, not in any real way. Vague sketches, parents who died when she was young, making her own way in the hippie days, living on communes, trading her baking and cooking skills for a roof overhead. Of Tillie’s father, she said only that many of them slept together at the farm where she lived—she didn’t know which of the men were her dad, and it didn’t matter. Arlette left when she was pregnant and went to the city to make money to raise her baby.

“When she said ‘the city,’ I always thought she meant New York. Maybe it was LA,” Tillie said, and a sense of lostness filled her chest cavity. The bits of paper, the ancient mementos, made Arlette’s life seem somehow lonely. “I wish I knew more about her life.”

His fingers were laced together, hanging between his knees as he balanced on his heels. A shaft of light made his eyes look translucent. He waited.

“That’s it,” she said. “I just wish I knew more.”

“Was she very private?”

“She was. But also ...” Tillie frowned. “She had some ... mental issues. Nothing particularly that interfered with her life or raising me, but she was reclusive, for sure. I sometimes wonder if she was abused as a child or something like that.”

His brows pulled down ever so slightly. “Could it have something to do with the illness? Or was it an injury? That you can’t remember?”

“Maybe.” She shook her head. “Anyway, that’s all a question for another day.” She slapped the cardboard lid down on the box, and it suddenly gave way, two corners splitting. “Whoa,” she said, staggering to her feet. “That made it a little bit heavy.”

“Do you want some help?” He mocked a muscleman pose and gave a grunt.

“Yes.” She smiled. “Please.”

As he lifted the box, he said, “You’ve dropped something there.”

It was the photo that had fluttered out. Tillie swept it up, turning it over to see a little girl, maybe two or so, in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt, sitting beside a swimming pool in a child-size chair.T in Santa Monica,it said on the back.

Not a child she recognized. She tucked it back into the box.

He carried it to the car, and she opened the trunk, shoving aside a blanket and a pile of junk she’d been meaning to get rid of. His forearms corded with appealing muscle, so he must not spendallhis time in meditation. “How’d you get these muscles, Superman?” she asked.