The house smelled of cardboard and dust. It was a dry, brittle scent that clung to the back of the throat. For fifty years, this house had smelled of lemon oil, of wood polish, of the specific blend of tea Marcus drank in the mornings. Now it smelled of transition. The rooms were echoing. Furniture had been moved to the warehouse. The walls were bare where paintings used to hang, leaving pale rectangles against the dark paint.
I stood in the hallway, holding a box labeled Study – Miscellaneous. It was lighter than I expected. Most of the important papers had already been sorted, archived, or handed over to Eleanor. This box contained the remnants. Pens that had run out of ink. Notebooks with half-used pages. A paperweight made of river stone that Marcus had picked up on our first trip to
