The smell of damp carpet in the unfinished basement hit me before I got to the bottom concrete step.

I reached up and tugged the faded pull string on the single bare bulb hanging over the old washing machine.

Yellow light pushed the shadows back and showed stack upon stack of heavy cardboard storage boxes piled high against the north foundation wall.

Not one of those boxes was mine.

I put my plastic garbage bag down by an old vinyl folding table and crossed the cold floor to the back corner.

My grandfather Arthur had built this craftsman-style house in 1994, lining the basement with thick poured concrete and tongue-and-groove pine.