Shakespeares Christmas Page 0,47

you better show me the house before I start."

So the little girl showed me her home. It was a large older house, with high ceilings and dark hardwood paneling and floors that needed work. I noticed the register of a floor furnace. I hadn't seen one of those in years. A Christmas tree decorated with religious symbols stood in the living room, the family's only communal room. The sofa, coffee table, and chair combo was maple with upholstery of a muted brown plaid. Clean but hideous.

Emory was slumped in the chair, his hand wrapped around a cold mug that had held coffee. I knew it was cold because I could see the ring around the middle. He'd had a drink after it had been sitting a spell. He didn't acknowledge our passage through the room. I wondered if I'd have to dust him like a piece of furniture.

The master bedroom was tidy, but the furniture needed polishing. Eve's room ... well, her bed had been made haphazardly, but the floor was littered with Barbies and coloring books. The baby's room was neatest, since the baby couldn't walk yet. The diaper pail needed emptying. The bathroom needed a complete scrubbing. The kitchen was not too bad.

"Where are the sheets?" I asked.

Eve said, "Mama's are in there." She pointed to the double closet in the master bedroom.

I stripped down the double bed, carried the dirty sheets to the washroom, started a load of wash. Back in the bedroom, I opened the closet door.

"There's Mama's stool," Eve said helpfully. "She always needs it to get things down from the closet shelf."

I was at least six inches taller than Meredith Osborn had been, and I could easily reach the shelf. But if I wanted to look at what was behind the sheets, the stool would be handy.

I stepped up, lifted the set of sheets, and scanned the contents of the closet shelf. Another blanket for the bed, a box marked "Shoe Polish," a cheap metal box for files and important papers. Then, under a pile of purses, I spotted a box marked "Eve." After I'd snapped the clean sheets on the bed, I sent Eve out of the room to fetch a dustcloth and the furniture polish.

I lifted down the box and opened it. I had to clench my teeth to make myself examine its contents. My sense of invasion was overwhelming.

In the box were faded "Welcome, Baby" cards, the kind family and friends send a couple when they have a child. I quickly riffled through them. They were only what they seemed. Also in the box was a little rattle and a baby outfit. It was soft knit, yellow, with little green giraffes scattered over it, the usual snap crotch and long sleeves. It had been folded carefully. Eve's coming home from the hospital outfit, maybe. But Eve had been born at home, I remembered. Well, then, Meredith's favorite of all Eve's baby clothes. My mother had some of mine and Varena's still packed away in our attic.

I closed the box and popped it back into position. By the time Eve returned, I had the flowered bedspread smoothed flat and taut across the bed and the blanket folded at the foot.

Together, we polished and dusted. Eve naturally didn't do things the most efficient way, since she was a grieving eight-year-old child. I am rigid about the way I like housework done and not used to working with anyone, but I managed it.

I'd had a pang of worry about Eve handling her mother's belongings, but Eve seemed to do that so matter-of-factly that I wondered if she didn't yet comprehend that her mother would not be returning.

In the course of cleaning that room I made sure I examined every nook and cranny. Short of going through the chest of drawers and the drawers in the night tables, I saw what there was to see in that bedroom: under the bed, the corners of the closet, the backs and bottoms of almost every single piece of furniture. Later, when I began to put the laundry away, I even caught glimpses of what was in the drawers. Just the usual stuff, as far as I could tell.

One drawer of the little desk in the corner was stacked with medical bills related to Meredith's pregnancy. At a glance, it had been a difficult one. I hoped the furniture store had a group policy.

"Shake the can, Eve," I reminded her, and she shook the yellow aerosol can of