Chapter 9: My Aunt's Box

Magnus let go of my hips.

I stepped back and pulled my T-shirt straight.

My mouth still felt the inch it hadn't crossed.

"I can go," he said quietly.

"Stay in the kitchen."

He picked up his plate and his fork and went through the swinging door without another word.

I unlocked the front.

The bell rang, and Joanne flinched at it.

She stood on the step and looked past me into the diner.

Her eyes went to the red stools, the pie case, my mother's handwriting on the glass.

Her chin started to shake.

"I haven't been inside since the funeral lunch," she said. "Randall said it was morbid."

"What's in the box?"

"Can I come in?"

I stood aside.

She set the box down on the counter.

It was a liquor store box, taped shut and retaped, and someone had written XMAS on the side in Randall's marker.

"He kept it in the crawl space," she said. "Behind the Christmas lights. I waited until he went to bed."

She tore the tape off with her fingernails.

Photo albums.

Five of them, the old kind with sticky pages and plastic sheets.

I opened the top one, and my mother looked up at me from behind the register.

She was laughing at whoever held the camera, with a pencil behind her ear.

I turned the page.

My dad at the flat-top in a paper hat, flipping something in the air.

My mom and dad in a booth, her feet in his lap.

A baby in a dish tub on the counter, surrounded by coffee cups, screaming.

"That's you," Joanne said. "Your first bath in this place. Your mom thought it was hilarious."

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