I went by the band saw and pushed through three piles of stacked oak planks in the back corner.

Behind them sat six gray cardboard storage boxes I hadn’t opened since the month the mortgage went into my name alone.

I hauled the top box down and set it on the concrete floor.

Dust rose off the lid in a thick gray cloud, and I coughed into my sleeve.

I peeled off the tape and dug through fat folders of tax forms from ten years back.

There were receipts for four hundred dollars of missing lumber, utility notices on yellow paper, and bank statements with red ink in the margins.