Chapter 7
My mother’s one-story house was set a few feet from the street, enclosed in a fenced-in yard whose flowerbeds had seen better days. The charming landscape needed mowing and pruning and a facelift. The asphalt roof had been renovated since I last visited.
Paula drove into the garage cluttered with years of my mother’s compulsive collecting. Ceramic dishes. Wine glasses she’d never used. Porcelain, antique dolls. Books. Magazines.
Cardboard boxes were stacked to the ceiling, taped shut with miscellaneous possessions labeled “fragile.” Translation: Lori’s Property—Do Not Touch!
Distressed, I stared at the heaping mess around me and cringed, closing my eyes, and wondering what I had come home to.
I got out of the car and helped my mother from the passenger seat, as Philip and Pa
