Chapter 96

Nevertheless, Olivia and I also realize how a lot is irretrievably gone. Complete years, inaccessible, a void. We can’t access Mom’s archives—”the family Jeanie-ologist,” she called herself whenever we’d inquire or disagree about our upbringing or relatives.

“On which side of the sink in our kitchen was the garbage disposal?” I ask. “Honestly, I don’t remember.”

“Me either. It’s nice, not remembering things together,” Olivia reflects.

Finally, we realize we didn’t even have a garbage disposal.

“How about The Clothesline? Hanging stuff in back of our house?” I prompt Olivia. That’s where delicates were hung, next to a flower garden, so that, as they dried, they absorbed the floral fragrance.

“We’d haul out that jambox while Mom hung up things.”

“She’d put clothespins on the ends of her fingers and clack them together like castanets.”

Olivia harrumphs. “Talons.”

“We’d dance, we’d spin.”

“We’d go inside smelling like lavender.”