“So would I,” I said quietly.

By half past eleven, the air outside smelled of oak logs burning in the neighbor’s chimney across Birch Street.

We carried the first wooden storage box down the creaky porch steps to the driveway.

The Buick’s trunk was already propped open and packed tight with heavy cardboard boxes of wool blankets, bath towels and folded sheets.

Claire came down the steps with a wide picture frame wrapped in a cotton sheet.

She folded back one corner of the cloth to show me the silver-painted wood and the old watercolor beneath it.