I drive to the big old house I grew up in. From the outside the unpainted shingles and off-kilter shutters give it the look of a building long abandoned. Grandad and I cleaned out most of the garbage, but inside I can smell the faint odor of mold under the Lysol. The place still looks tidy, but I can tell Mom’s been here. There are a couple of shopping bags on the dining room table and there’s a mug of tea rotting in the kitchen sink.
Good thing Grandad’s down in Carney; he’d be annoyed.
I walk straight to the chair. It’s covered in a kind of a mustardy cloth and is perfectly normal-looking for a club chair, except for the feet, which, now that I really look at them, are awful. I thought they were claw feet holding on to painted balls, and at a glance that’s what they look like. But now
