tentatively, what I would be serving, as if she knew it was bad manners to ask, then turned and whispered “macaroni and cheese” to her mother, who was clearly standing nearby, requesting an answer. I hadn’t seen her in a few months but I imagined she still liked cheese. At the last minute, I added, “Tell her it will be homemade. With organic cheddar cheese. From Whole Foods.” Oh, I was really laying it on, wasn’t I? I was also lying, as I’d never even set foot in Whole Foods, which is on Tinsley’s end of town, not mine.
But what did Tinsley think? That my cupboards are bare? That I’ve forgotten what little girls eat? I’d always thought of her as highly organized but I was beginning to suspect she was a control freak. Tom told me once it was because she skipped a grade in school, and had gone to college a year younger than everyone else. Said she was always trying to catch up, trying to prove herself to be grown up and mature and “together.” She’s been an adult her whole life, Mother, he’d said. Well, she didn’t need to tell this particular adult what to feed a child!
I still remember my own tea parties, the pale cups, marzipan apples, and soft sandwiches my mother helped Bertha assemble in the butler’s pantry near the patio. I remember her laughing and telling Bertha it didn’t matter what you put in a tea party sandwich as long as it wasn’t green and you cut the crusts off. She was right; my mother couldn’t boil an egg, but with children it was all about color and presentation. That was something Theo had never really understood. He winced when I’d bring home a plastic truck or a bright clown; he’d rub his head Christmas morning as if the shiny toys and metallic paper hurt his eyes. He liked wood, brass, leather. Toy trains were fine but matchbox cars were frowned upon. Toy soldiers were acceptable but those wind-up tin monkeys had to go. The pale blue walls in Tom’s room were a compromise; Theo couldn’t stand the idea of childish wallpaper. The walls are still blue, but it’s not a bedroom anymore. There is no crib or bed, only bookshelves and an armoire. Children don’t sleep here anymore, but they’ve left their imprint here nonetheless.
My bath was quick so I’d have time to prepare for Ellie’s arrival. I could make the macaroni and cheese tomorrow, but I needed to gather materials for her first. I went up in the attic, pulled the chain to the light, and surveyed the landscape of sheet-covered furniture, vinyl wardrobes, leather trunks, and boxes. The topography of the past. On my left were the dark brown ones, from my mother, stacked four deep; the smaller black one from Theo’s family, and farther away, on the right, the green ones Theo and I had packed with the children’s things. I knelt in front of Theo’s black family trunk and ran my hand across its dusty lid. A chimney fire at his parents’ Wilmington estate destroyed everything in their attic, the second floor, and most of the first; only a few scrapbooks and yearbooks from the library had been retrieved. I’d forgotten how little remained from Theo’s side, and I felt a sudden tenderness toward it now, as if it were an urn, or a small casket of bones. The Harris luggage tag dangled from the rightside handle, and I cupped it in my hand. When his parents sold the main property and moved into the carriage house, there wasn’t room for too many old memories, anyway; it was as if the fire conspired in their downsizing. But unlike my mother, they had at least lost their money the old-fashioned way: in a stock market crash.
I sighed and turned to my family’s trunks. Between my mother’s family, the Biddles, and my father’s, the Stinsons, I had dozens of leather-bound albums stashed inside, each embossed with the family crest. As I get older, I understand the practicality of monogramming—so useful for those with a flagging memory. Once I was at bridge club and couldn’t for the life of me remember my host’s first name. The hand towels in the bathroom saved me: M was for Mary. Of course!
I pulled out book after book and started to leaf through them. I’d have to pick and choose what would be useful to Ellie so as not to overwhelm her. My father’s