I visited it alone on a Wednesday afternoon, using the key Thomas had given me. The place smelled stale, like grief and abandonment.
Brandon had ransacked the bedroom where Grandma kept her collection, leaving drawers open and boxes overturned in his frantic search for valuables.
But he’d missed things.
He’d missed the false bottom in her jewelry armoire where she kept her most precious pieces, the ones with purely sentimental value.
He’d missed the photo albums documenting her life.
The handwritten journals she’d kept for fifty years.
The letters Grandpa had sent her during the Korean War.
He’d missed everything that actually mattered.
