“There is one room,” I said.
“What room?”
“The storage room off the garage.”
“Does she have a key?”
“Yes.”
“So do I.”
The responder wrote something down.
I suddenly remembered a conversation from months earlier.
My wife had come into the kitchen carrying a pair of thick gloves. I had asked what they were for.
“Yard work,” she said.
I hadn’t questioned it.
Another memory followed.
A heavy plastic container in the garage.
A strange smell.
My wife telling me she’d been cleaning out old supplies.
At the time, each thing had seemed too ordinary to matter.
Together, they no longer felt ordinary.
The responder must have seen something change in my face.
“What are you remembering?”
I told him.
He didn’t tell me what it meant.
He simply asked whether I could identify the container if they found it.
“Yes.”
My daughter shifted beside me.
