Flying Solo(5)

At the very bottom of the box, there were two short rows of 8-track tapes lined up. “So for music, our selections include Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, The Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac, Smokey Robinson, Santana, David Bowie, and Van Halen.”

“Dot listened to Van Halen?”

“Well, let’s see. This is Van Halen II. From this label it looks like it came out in 1979. Dot would have been, what, about fifty? That tracks. I hope to still be listening to cool new music in ten years.” She picked up the tape, and found something stuffed into the cardboard sleeve. When Laurie slid it out and unfolded it, she grinned and looked at June. “It’s a ticket stub. Dot saw Van Halen in Boston, at the Paradise Theater, on March 27, 1978. Opening for Journey.” She handed it to June.

“Wow. My mind is completely blown. The idea of my grandmother or even my mother rocking out is so baffling to me.”

“I’m clearly going to have to pick through all her music, in case she has anything else stashed in here. The rest of this bin is supposed to be cameras, but everything’s in these fabric boxes.” She took the lid off one, and inside were two Polaroid cameras. One looked older than any of the Polaroid cameras Laurie had ever seen, and one was the same kind of OneStep her parents had when she was a toddler. She unloaded all the fabric boxes, and she kept finding instant cameras. A total of five Polaroids, two Kodaks, and a Fujifilm. Some looked like they were of an 8-track vintage; others looked like they were probably made right before digital cameras upended instant photography. One or two looked practically current.

The last box she opened was labeled on top 2007. Laurie pulled the lid off, and inside were Polaroid photos. Long rows of Polaroids, or Fujifilms or whatever, filed with unlabeled dividers that separated them into bunches. She pulled one stack out. This was a trip to New York. The Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, the marquee at Radio City Music Hall. There was a picture of Dot, then almost eighty years old and silver-haired, her beaming face pressed next to that of a man who looked about the same age, under the marquee for Avenue Q. There was a single word written in Sharpie in the white border under the photo: “Leo.” She turned the picture around and showed it to June. “I knew she liked Broadway.”

June leaned forward. “Who’s Leo?”

Laurie shook her head. “I don’t have any idea. She was well into her retirement by then, and I know she traveled all over with all kinds of people. I have no idea who Leo might have been, but clearly, they were having a lot of fun together seeing the dirty puppet musical.”

The rest of the box held a combination of travel pictures, pictures from birthday parties and a couple of weddings and what seemed to be a football game at the high school, and pictures of people Laurie only occasionally recognized. There was one of her mother and father, and a few that had been taken at her brother Patrick’s wedding. She only vaguely remembered Dot walking around with an instant camera, stopping at every table to grab a couple of shots.

“Why do you think she packed her cameras with a box of pictures from 2007?” June asked as she went back to sorting books into boxes by type and condition.

“Maybe these are the most recent ones she had,” Laurie said as she put them back into the box and picked up one of the older cameras. “I know they stopped making instant film for a while, so maybe she stopped when she got a digital camera.”

“Maybe all the newer ones were naughty.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they were, but I would be surprised if she left those around for people to find. I do think there are probably more pictures somewhere.” She turned the camera over in her hands. “Like, a lot more pictures.”





Chapter Two


Not long after they found the cameras, there was a knock. “That will be the Grim Reaper,” Laurie said, heading for the door. She opened it to find a guy in a Decemberists concert shirt and jeans looking down at an iPad. He looked up and smiled. “Hi, I’m Matt, I’m from Save the Best, I think we talked on the phone?”

Save the Best was a service that would come and inspect the house of a person who was either dead or downsizing to determine whether any of their stuff was worth selling and haul away the rest. They called this particular service “bereavement decluttering.” Which, Laurie supposed, was better than calling it Almost Literally a Flock of Vultures Circling Your Dead Relatives.

He didn’t look like a vulture, though. He looked like a philosophy professor as you might encounter him buying granola at a Whole Foods. She suspected he actually went to that concert to buy that shirt. He’d bought the ticket, he’d put on the orange wristband, he’d had the overpriced beer, he’d stood near the back out of consideration for shorter people. (Probably.) His eyes were gray but also blue, and he had a little bit of a tattoo poking out from under his sleeve. Maybe something vaguely Celtic. Maybe something pretentious like a platitude in Latin.

She gathered herself. “Hi, I’m Laurie Sassalyn, thanks for coming.” He followed her in and sat on the couch while June and Laurie settled in the wing chairs. “So where do we start?” Laurie said.

“Tell me about you, and tell me about your aunt.” He left his iPad sitting at his hip for now.

“Well, I’m Laurie—I said that—and this is my friend June Devon. Dot was actually my great-aunt. My mother’s father’s sister. She was ninety-three.”