Little Girls(26)
Susan shrugged and looked down at her cereal. “Wasn’t very funny to me,” she said.
The front door slammed at the opposite end of the house. Ted shouted a friendly halloo down the hallway, his baritone voice full-bodied with reverberation. When he appeared in the kitchen doorway, he was mopping sweat off his brow with a towel. His sweaty T-shirt clung to him and his spandex shorts looked too tight. “Good morning.” He seemed to be in a good mood. “It’s a beautiful day out. How are my favorite ladies?”
“There’s butterflies,” Susan piped up from her chair.
“Yeah? Where?”
The girl pointed to the low bushes outside the bay windows. There were yellow flowers with fuzzy brown centers bristling from the bushes. “Right out there,” Susan said. “I saw them earlier. They were lots of different colors.”
Ted went over and kissed the top of Susan’s head. “Do you know what those flowers are called?” He pointed to the yellow flowers with the brown centers.
Susan shook her head.
“Black-eyed Susans.”
The girl giggled. “You’re lying!”
“I’m not,” Ted said, placing one hand over his heart. Beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead. “Bet you a dollar.”
Susan got up from the table and stood before the windows. She peered down at the flowers that swayed calmly in the early summer breeze. “Wow,” she said. “How come they’re named after me?”
“Because the people who name flowers tried to think of the most beautiful name in the whole world,” Ted said. “But then they realized that ‘Rose’ was already taken.”
“Daddy!” Susan chided, laughing.
Laurie smiled and turned back to the stove. A part of her longed for the easy affection Ted and Susan shared.
“Do you want breakfast?” she asked Ted. “I’m making eggs.”
“Eggs sound wonderful,” he said, coming up beside her and kissing her on the cheek. “I’m gonna grab a quick shower.” He turned back toward Susan as he backtracked out of the kitchen. “You shout for me if you see another butterfly, okay? I don’t wanna miss ’em!”
Again, Susan beamed brightly.
Later, Laurie telephoned the estate liquidator, Stephanie Canton, and set up an appointment for her to stop by at her next available opportunity to conduct a preliminary assessment of her father’s belongings. Laurie assured the woman that everything would have to go because they were selling the house. “Our place back in Hartford is very small,” Laurie confided over the telephone, “and we don’t have the room for anything else. I don’t see me leaving here with a blessed thing.”
“Nonetheless, I always advise all my clients to conduct a comprehensive inventory prior to my arrival.” Stephanie Canton spoke with the frank diction of a military officer. “Things can hide, Mrs. Genarro.”
“Well, okay, but I’m certain we won’t be keeping anything.”
“The earliest I can be there is Friday afternoon.”
“That’s fine,” Laurie said.
“If there is any paperwork for any of the items, please have that on hand.”
“Paperwork?”
“For example, if you have antique furniture, some documentation as to its authenticity would prove beneficial in terms of resale. The same goes for any autographed memorabilia—books, baseball cards, paintings—and the like.”
“Oh, okay. I understand. Sorry, I’ve never done this before.”
On the other end of the phone, Stephanie Canton made a noise that could have been interpreted as either endorsement or derision. “Is there any clothing left behind?”
Left behind, Laurie thought, and shivered. “Yes. All of his clothes.”
“I don’t handle clothing. My recommendation would be to contact the Salvation Army or Purple Heart or any such organization and have the articles donated. It’s a tax write-off.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“You have my number. Call if you have any questions prior to my visit.”
“See you Friday,” Laurie said, and hung up.
She spent the remainder of the day doing just as Stephanie Canton had advised: taking inventory of all the items in the house. When she arrived in her father’s study, she went through the boxes Dora Lorton had packed up, removing all the items from within and setting them down in rows on the desktop like a soldier disassembling a machine gun. Pipes, lighters, candlesticks, incense, a letter opener, sets of keys, a pewter ashtray with a faded crest engraved in the dish, and similar accoutrements. A second box held silver tie clips, two pocket watches (one gold, one silver, neither operational), old pairs of wire-rimmed glasses, yellowed and brittle stationary, a clutch of pencils punctured with teeth marks and bound together by a rubber band, and a few coffee mugs with unfamiliar emblems on the sides. The third box contained perhaps forty or so records—large vinyl LPs in timeworn sleeves that smelled musty and old. Laurie took out a number of these and examined the sleeves. Frowning, she recognized none of the names, none of the faces. Pursing one album sleeve, she reached in and pinched the LP between her thumb and index finger and slid it out. It was made of a material sturdier than vinyl. She blew a film of dust off the record and saw that the grooves looked to be in workable condition. Nary a scratch was visible. She let the record drop back into the cardboard sleeve, then replaced the album back in the box with the others.