of the cabinet. The aspen it’s made of is as white and smooth as the petals on the daffodils that have started sprouting in the meadows around our cabin.
For the first time since Dad died, my heart beats at a normal pace. Maybe I’ve misjudged Mom. Maybe she does spend her days out here just to feel close to him.
No, she’s hiding something, Iris insists. Whatever he was going to tell you.
Wyatt interrupts my focus on Iris’s words. “Maybe we should leave,” he says. “It’s sort of soon for you to be coming out here.”
“No, I’m okay. It feels good to be around Dad’s stuff. It’s just strange being here without him. This place was always off limits unless he was with me. He said it wasn’t safe, and he didn’t like anyone messing with his tools.” I scan the space around us, the peg board–covered walls with hooks and tools hanging from them, the wood stacked along one of them, Dad’s workbench and electric table saw, the paper-thin wood shavings scattered across the floor. Projects he left unfinished. “I feel him here,” I whisper.
“Me, too,” Wyatt says.
“I think Mom was going through Dad’s big toolbox.” I walk to the storage closet, the key ring dangling from my fingers. “She must’ve dragged it back in here.” I try each key on the ring until the door unlocks. When I open it, I’m surprised to find two metal toolboxes inside—Dad’s battered one, and another one just like it that looks almost new. “That’s strange,” I say, laying my hand on the shiny metal. “I’ve never seen this one before.”
Wyatt helps me tug it out into the room. Dropping to my knees, I insert each key in the latch, and when one of them works, I take a deep breath. “This might sound crazy, but I’m really scared to see what’s in here.”
“Let me do it,” says Wyatt, crouching beside me. The hinges squeak as he opens the lid. “It’s just a bunch of clothes.”
Iris seems eager but also tense, as I stand and lift out the first piece of clothing and remove the dry-cleaner plastic around it. It’s the fanciest dress I’ve ever seen, except in magazines and on television. The emerald green fabric is covered with tiny green beads.
“Wow.” Wyatt blinks at me. “Was that your mom’s?”
“I guess.”
“I can’t imagine her wearing something like that.”
I can’t see my no-frills mother in the dress, either. She’s strictly a jeans-and-sweatshirt sort of person.
I drape the dry cleaner plastic over Dad’s table saw and lay the dress on top of it, then lift the next item out of the chest. It’s a fitted white blouse. “I guess these clothes could be hers,” I say. “But they look like they belonged to someone younger.”
“Your mom was our age once,” Wyatt reminds me.
I hold the blouse up in front of me. “Yeah, but Mom’s sixty years old, and I don’t think the styles were like this when she was in high school. I mean, look at the shoulder pads. I’m pretty sure they were popular in the eighties or nineties.”
Placing the blouse on top of the dress, I reach into the chest again, take out a plaid wool miniskirt, black leggings, two long baggy pullover sweaters, and a white dress. I add each one to the pile on Dad’s table saw. The next item looks larger than the others. A man’s red flannel shirt, the fabric soft and faded. On impulse, I slip it on. The shirt feels strangely familiar. Comfortable. Comforting. As I’m rolling up the sleeves, Iris sighs inside my head, as if the flannel against my skin soothes her, too.
“Hey, look at this,” Wyatt says, bending over the toolbox. “There’s other stuff under the clothes.” He sets a small silver jewelry box on the floor between us, then holds up a hairbrush for me to see.
I take the brush from him as he removes a long black case. “What’s that?” I ask.
He carries it to Dad’s workbench, sets it down, and flips the latches. “Whoa,” he says as he lifts the lid. “It’s a violin. A Stradivarius. They cost big bucks; pretty much only professional musicians can afford them.”
A chill skates across my skin and Iris shivers violently. The hairbrush slips from my fingers and lands on the floor with a thud. The violin’s amber wood gleams like polished marble, and I have the strangest feeling that I know exactly how it would feel against my skin. Smooth and cool, the neck