Heirlooms
By Will Hoedemaker
As we climbed the steps to Doris’ apartment, I sensed that there might be distractions, so I reminded myself what my dad and I were here to do: find a binder. Auntie Eunice’s will and power of attorney had been missing for weeks, and it was unclear if she could draft a new one, having just been moved from independent living to the memory ward at The Manor. Doris, the youngest at 73, had been helping Eunice, keeping track of bills and planning cruises (on which she accompanied her). Eunice said she didn't have the binder, but that it might have gotten mixed up with some other things.
“Hi!, just… Come on in, if you can!” Doris yelled from her easy chair.
In addition to being unable to get up and open the door because of a bad hip, Doris’ hospitality was impaired by the condition of the apartment. Before I could peek through the door, I caught the smell of things that were rotting and things that had rotted a long time ago. It was a smell I knew from encounters with shut-ins and hoarders, a smell of mental illness. Doris was casual and poker-faced, as if this were any other family function. I couldn't tell if she was playing it cool or if she really thought there was nothing in need of explanation. My family does not consist of open, sharing people, and when it’s doubtful that an explanation would be more helpful than pretending it’s fine, we choose fine.
The door to the apartment opened a couple of feet before hitting something heavy. When I shimmied past, I found myself in a sea of boxes, stacked clothes, bags, and furniture that was on top of and underneath it all, like fruit wedges floating in a Jell-O casserole. The flood of information overwhelmed me and the primary goal of finding the binder shimmered and threatened to flicker out as it caught in the eddies of that room. I immediately found things that were not the binder: unopened letters, boxes of files, things that were none of my business and answers to questions I had not asked. Answers led to more questions and changing goals. Should we help Doris?
My dad, the middle child, was not going to do much lifting. He was about to have a knee replaced and a hernia lurked in his abdomen. The prior week Uncle David, the second oldest, had been here and had loaded up his little truck three times. Dad sat with Doris and they talked about the old days and relatives who weren't there. At 52 years old, I had the only back that could move boxes, so I kept doing that.
Doris maintained the pleasant demeanor of someone who just arrived for Thanksgiving and sat down for a polite conversation. She might have been trying her best to keep it together as family members tore through her personal stuff, or she might have been enjoying the breeze through the patio door with her headphones on. It was the way she always looked. I realized it was the same as my grandmother’s demeanor, comforting or infuriating depending on what you needed from her. Her serenity was an insistence that everything was fine, we’ll all be together in heaven.
Only, I didn't know if Doris believed in heaven. Of the four siblings, she has strayed the farthest. She will nod along when someone prays. She knows the old hymns and can find the alto line. But the fate of her soul is unclear.
It’s easier to examine her actions. She joined the Navy and served on ships in the Persian Gulf. She was something of a hippy in the California of the 60s and 70s (which was, to the best of my knowledge, the best time and place in human history to be a hippy). She met Darlene and settled down in the 80s. Darlene, who was warmer and more communicative than Doris, was welcome at family gatherings under the unspoken condition that nothing would be spoken. As a child, it felt normal to me that my aunt brought a guest who became a kind of family member, about whom it was not appropriate to ask questions. It didn't seem to interfere with any of us building close relationships with her.
Darlene’s guitar sat between some boxes, Darlene’s collection of plastic flower leis hung from the bookshelf, her other collection of leis in a hatbox. Darlene had fallen in love with and taken home that coffee table underneath the other table underneath the cardboard file boxes. It seemed reasonable that Doris was not ready to let go of those things. Darlene, according to Doris, had been quite a hoarder.
I was able to create some space by moving things around, but it was still impossible to get to the places where it looked like papers and files could hide. I began to feel a craving, deep in my soul, to throw things out. It felt like what an arsonist must feel, in the early stages of their compulsion, before they realize the only solution is fire. The removal of any item required negotiation. Everything had some significance, even if it was unclear what its purpose was or how it had come to be here.
When it was unclear why she possessed a thing, Doris felt it was best to be cautious and hang on to it a while longer.
I tried to calculate the steps from here to becoming homeless, and it was really just one step. Eviction. Doris needed an intervention, a purge followed by a deep clean. Above all, Doris needed to change. She needed to no longer be crazy and dysfunctional in this way. I considered giving her a serious talk, the first of its kind from me, in which I mansplained how an old, grieving lesbian Hoedemaker ought to conduct herself; tips on diet, exercise, self-discipline, and the care and feeding of cats. I couldn't do that, so instead, I re-focused my efforts on looking for the binder and, if possible, making the apartment safe and livable. Within that scope, I further constrained myself to the dining room and kitchen and to addressing the possibly cat-related smell.
My dad negotiated the release of several pieces of furniture and, for a time, managed to shift the burden of proof to things that wanted to stay. Multiple trips to Goodwill made a dent in the material stacked near the front door. The conglomerate seemed to expand when disturbed, so that when one item was removed, three more emerged from hidden pores in the apartment to fill the space.
Four litter boxes were found in different locations. They were full and unattended and long ago abandoned as places to defecate.
There were two problems to solve with the kitchen sink: access and cleaning. Pots sitting there under dishes under boxes had a couple of inches of liquid in them which had completely evaporated, leaving a waterline and dry scum annealed to the bottom. I found the work gratifying. If I could keep a breeze going through from the sliding glass door, it kept me from retching and allowed me to solve the series of interlocking puzzles, moving the boxes to get to the dishes to get to the pots.
Once the sink was clear, I ran the water for the first time in months and suddenly this critical corner of the kitchen was functional, like a leak in a breaking dam. When I poured sludge out of a pot, the water carried its stink and disappeared down the sink forever. But then where to put clean things? The cabinets were full of more questions.
I needed a sponge and some soap. Doris got up from her chair to locate sponges, but it was hard to get to that particular shelf, and when we got there, it was filled with dusty stacks of dishes from top to bottom. It felt like she was doing me a favor, trying to get me those sponges I wanted, but she got queasy and had to sit down again. I found the sponges later, several boxes of sponges, in the hallway closet.
Dad got an agreement that everything on the porch was trash, and I moved the hoses, chairs, assorted tarps, and cat accessories down to the lawn. The air on the patio smelled like blue sky and redwood trees.
At lunchtime, David returned with Auntie Tricia and surveyed the scene. I was hungry.
“I know where we should go,” he said, patting me on the back with the pride of inside, local knowledge.
At Cosco, we bought $2 hotdogs and sat on the benches outside.
“I throw everything out that I can’t keep track of,” Tricia said. “Everything we own we can put in a suitcase and walk out the door right now.”
Tricia beamed, as if Jesus had allowed her one carry-on item. Her claim was very possibly true, they’d always had tightly controlled physical possessions. She made the best pickles, and David built his own house, which was always clean. Getting my cousin’s toys out to play was prohibitively inconvenient, and I remember playing with clods of dirt on Thanksgiving.
“Lord, I’m READY!” said Tricia as the rest of us ate hot dogs.
I don't know what Tricia had for lunch, but it wasn't this. She seemed like she would be around for a long time.
Looking around Doris’ place after lunch, I was depressed at how little we had accomplished. A square yard of maneuvering space, the ability to wash dishes. A safer refrigerator. It would be a helpful step to someone who had made a choice to rebuild their life. I felt in danger of being a tourist here, only accomplishing a violation of privacy.
I did find the binder though.
It was with two other blue three-ring binders in a box of office supplies. I sat down and read the will. It specified that, when she died, Eunice’s money would go to her granddaughter, Eva.
A year later, I returned for Eunice’s funeral. Doris had been evicted from her apartment and men in hazmat suits threw all her stuff into a dumpster. My cousin Shirly, who had been managing Doris and Eunice’s papers, got her moved into The Manor. Before she died, Eunice changed her will, making Doris the inheritor of her modest fortune, which Doris needed for rent.
The small apartment looked like someone had just moved in, with boxes still packed in Doris’ room, but it was possible to walk around. I played Darlene’s guitar while the rest of the family sat and talked about Eunice: her career as a scientist, world traveler, and mentor to many teachers and professors. She had been impressive. She had depended on Doris in some way I didn't understand, and even at the age of 53, I felt like a child at the table, with the undertones of what was said going over my head. I didn't understand how my cousins and siblings could be adults when I was not.
When I play guitar, I can take in what people say but I can’t really talk. There were some concerns about Doris’ ability to remain in The Manor if the smell that emanated from her colostomy bag persisted. In Denver, my own parents were scheduling a move from their large house, full of their undisturbed things, to an assisted living facility. It was a D-Day-style event, involving multiple professional teams and vehicles. My parents would land at the new apartment and most of their things would land in a storage facility, where these things would begin a new existence, independent of my parents.
While they discussed details, I remembered I had seen a large, open dumpster in Auntie Doris’ parking lot, and I experienced a strong and sudden urge to fill it. I imagined the feeling of cardboard in my hands as I played Darlene’s guitar.
Will Hoedemaker was born in Saskatoon, Canada, into a disintegrating community of Mennonite farmers. He emigrated to California as a child and learned to tell elaborate stories when he talked his way into his first tech job at Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto. Today he lives in semi-retirement in Lawrence, Kansas, where he lurks in cafes and performs his own songs at open mics. His ongoing goal is to have one exceptionally good conversation every week.
