On Wednesday evening Elena had packed the shoes heel to toe, wrapped in old pillowcases so they wouldn't mark the clothes.
“You can take more than that,” Mara said.
“I know.”
“There's room in the car.”
“It's the room at the other end.”
Mara stood in the bedroom doorway, holding the box with the towel inside. She had brought it from the car despite Elena saying the lamp could sit on her lap. It was not a large box. She put it on the bed beside a folded pair of pants and looked around for something to do.
Daniel was out buying the additional fitting for the shower. He had called while Mara was on her way over, asking whether she remembered where he'd put the tape measure. She had said she didn't know. Now she could see it on the dresser, the yellow tape drawn out a few inches as if somebody had begun measuring and forgotten what for.
Elena picked up the pants and put them in the bag.
“Did you tell Leo?” Mara asked.
“About tomorrow? Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked if I'd got somewhere. If I wanted him to come.”
“Does he?”
“I told him I'd be all right.”
Elena pressed the clothes down with both hands. The bag had a pocket in the lining that stuck out at an awkward angle. Mara tucked it flat, and Elena held the clothes while she pulled the zipper a short way around the curve.
“Not all the way,” Elena said. “I need the shirt in the bathroom.”
Mara stopped. Elena went to get it, leaving her with one hand on the bag.
This had been their mother's room. The bed was different, the dresser new since the old one had broken during a move, but the window still opened toward the neighbor's wall. When Mara was small she had used to stand on the bed to see over the top of it. There had been a clothesline beyond, a yard with a big dog who barked when nobody was looking and went quiet as soon as somebody came to see why.
She put her hand against the sill. The paint beneath her thumb was smooth. Daniel had done that himself, standing on a chair with his old jeans folded over the back so Elena couldn't complain about where he put the paint can.
Elena came back with the shirt on a hanger.
“Can you hold this?”
Mara took it. The cotton was damp across one shoulder. Elena shook a towel onto the bed and laid the shirt on it, rolling them together to press the last water out.
“It won't dry shut in there,” Mara said.
“I know. I'll leave it out till morning.”
She unrolled the towel. Mara took the hanger again and hung the shirt from the top of the door. It left a little dark patch against the wood.
Mara stood back to look at it. The shoulder had begun drying already; the pale edge was spreading slowly across the dark patch. Elena sat on the edge of the bed, testing the space between the bag and the box.
“It's not a beautiful room,” she said.
Mara remained by the door.
“I didn't ask.”
“You were going to.”
“I was going to ask if the bed was any good.”
“It has one.”
“That's a start.”
Elena leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “The woman renting it put a towel on the pillow because she'd washed her hair and wanted to show me there wasn't a leak. I didn't know what to say. She was so pleased to prove it.”
“Is it clean?”
“Clean enough. I'll do it.”
“I'll bring the little vacuum.”
Elena looked at her.
“If you want,” Mara added.
“Not tomorrow. I'll put things away first.”
Mara nodded. Her car key was pressing against the skin at her hip. She moved it around in her pocket.
There was a pause. In the hall, the old floorboard gave a little click, settling in a place where Mara still expected to hear her mother's slippers. She turned toward the dresser.
Between a comb and a jar of hand cream stood a photograph in a narrow frame. Leo at eight, missing both front teeth. His ears looked too large for him. Daniel was crouched behind him on a stretch of wet sand, one hand making rabbit ears, his own eyes closed because somebody had said something just as the photograph was taken.
Mara picked it up.
“I remember this.”
“You took it.”
“That's why.”
“You kept telling them to stand still. They were squatting. He said you were making it difficult.”
Mara smiled. “He wouldn't open his eyes.”
“He thought you were finished.”
The photograph was coming loose at one corner. Mara pressed the frame's back into place, holding the image with her thumb against the glass.
“Are you taking it?”
“That one, yes.”
Elena held out a folded sweater. Mara slid the frame inside it and laid it on top of the clothes. Daniel's face disappeared first, then Leo's smile.
“He'll think it's gone,” Mara said.
“I've got another print. It's in the drawer.”
She pointed, and Mara opened it. There was a packet of photographs held together by a stretched rubber band. Elena took out a loose copy, put it flat on the dresser and set the comb across its bottom edge to stop it curling.
Mara looked from the print to the bag. On the dresser, Leo was still laughing beneath his father's fingers.
“Did you have a good time?” she asked.
Elena glanced up. “That day?”
Mara nodded.
“Yes.”
“We did, didn't we?”
“Leo got sunburned on his feet.”
“You told him not to bury his shoes.”
“His father told him he'd remember where.”
They laughed together, quietly enough for the empty house to take some of the sound away. Mara sat on the chair by the window. It had a shawl over the back; Elena folded it and gave her the seat without having to be asked.
“I don't hate him,” Elena said.
Mara looked down at the shawl in her lap. She hadn't known Elena had put it there.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I know you don't hate him.”
Elena nodded. “Good.”
She returned to the bag. Mara watched her choose between two books, read the back of one though she must have read it before, then put both in. The bag wouldn't close now. Elena looked at it, laughed once and took the shoes out again.
“I'll have to wear all of them.”
Mara reached for the second bag on the floor and opened it. They repacked without deciding who had taken charge. Elena chose; Mara found space. The shoes went in the bottom. The books lay flat against the side. A pair of thick socks filled the hollow inside one heel.
In the bathroom Mara retrieved a small glass dish Elena had asked for. There were two hair clips inside and an old brass button. She had seen it before, in Elena's hand, years ago when Daniel said he would sew it back on the coat she had given away before he remembered.
“Do you want that?” Mara called.
“The dish? Yes.”
“The button.”
Elena came to the doorway and looked into Mara's palm.
“Put it in. I'll find somewhere for it.”
Mara tipped it back into the dish. Elena wrapped the glass in a sock, not so firmly that it would be hard to unwrap.
Downstairs the front door opened. Daniel called that he had got the wrong fitting and they'd sold him another wrong one on purpose. Elena closed the bag as far as it would go and stood it upright by the closet.
Mara picked up the box. “I'll put this in the kitchen.”
“Bring it tomorrow. I'm still using the lamp.”
Elena went past her into the hall. Daniel was coming up with a package in his hand. They stopped on the landing, two people accustomed to passing in a narrow space.
“Does it need to go in tonight?” she asked.
“I can do it tomorrow morning.”
“All right.”
He put the package on the top stair and moved aside. Elena came down, leaving him looking up at Mara. She held the box against her waist, the towel folded over its edge.
“Still packing?” he asked.
“Nearly done.”
He looked past her at the damp shirt above the door.
“That won't dry like that,” he said.
“It might.”
He smiled at her stubbornness, then picked up the package and followed his wife down the stairs.