Noah stood up and walked to the narrow window that faced the gravel alley. He looked out at the dark shape of the dumpster below.
“Grandma Ruth wouldn’t lie to us,” Noah said. “She raised us when Clara had her spells.”
“She was crying, Noah. She looked like she wanted the floor to open up and swallow her.”
Noah turned back to the room, his jaw tight. “Why would they keep that ledger if it was a lie?”
“Maybe the ledger doesn’t say what she told us it did,” I said.
“We need to see Josh’s things,” Noah said. “The boxes in my kitchen.”
Noah’s apartment was three blocks away, situated over an empty dry cleaner’s shop on Elm Lane. The kitchen was cold, the pilot light on the stove casting a small blue star against the dark wall.
Noah dragged a cardboard box out from the bottom of his pantry. It was filled with Josh’s old tax papers, utility bills from nineteen ninety-nine, and small pocket calendars with the days crossed out in thick pencil.
