Page 44 of A Thin Line

“I’m going to leave much of that up to you—but I’ll give you some guidelines. You’ll record each item—it can be on paper or digitally. I don’t much care how you do it. Record what the item is with a brief description and then store it so that it’s easily found. I’ll leave that up to you as well but, for example, you might decide to store all the paintings in one of the closets. You’d indicate that in your documentation.”

“Okay.” I walked over to the paintings and started leafing through them, excited to get started. Then I turned around to face Sinclair again. “How do I get what I need to start tracking everything?”

I realized after the words were out of my mouth that I’d made my anticipation obvious—but he seemed…pleased. “Let Edna know whatever you want and she’ll take care of it.” Straightening his shoulders, he said, “Any other questions?”

Too many—and, as much as I hated to ask, I had to know. “This is really all you want me to do?”

At that, he flashed a subtle smile. “Yes—unless you enjoyed the work yesterday.”

“No—I mean, I’d be happy to just focus on this.”

“I imagine this will take quite some time. There’s a lot of stuff down here and I’d just like a good idea of what it is. Of course, if you need or want to clean down here as you work, that’s also fine. There’s a lot of dust and a few cobwebs here and there. Again, though, I’ll leave the minutia up to you.” Without having to go through it himself—but I wasn’t about to blurt that out. “Would you like more coffee before you get started?”

“Yes, I think so.”

He held out his arm, indicating he wanted me to go first up the stairs. He said, “We’ll just leave the lights on down here. You can turn them off when you finish for the day.”

“When should that be?”

“Five o’clock would be a good stopping point.” As we entered the main hallway, he said, “If you need a break—if this work gets to be a little tedious and you want something different to do for an hour or so, just let Edna know.”

He already knew I was excited about this venture, so I didn’t see any harm in admitting it. “No. I think I’ll enjoy this project.”

“Good.” When we got back to the kitchen, Edna was still there, cleaning up. “Would you bring Ms. Miller another cup of coffee, please?”

While she brought another cup for me along with a travel mug for Sinclair, he said, “Edna, I’ve instructed Ms. Miller to let you know whatever it is she’ll need to do the tasks downstairs. Please see to it that she has everything she needs.”

“Of course, Mr. Whittier.”

After she handed me the coffee, I picked up the cream pitcher and poured a little in the mug. Sinclair asked, “Are you ready to sign the contract?”

Ugh. I’d almost forgotten about that. But I wasn’t about to lie. Looking at him, I said, “No.”

I was almost shocked that he was trying to stop himself from smiling.

Chapter 16

After Sinclair left for work, I let Edna know what I wanted—a laptop or tablet so I could record everything and a clipboard or a spiral notebook. Everything I did would eventually wind up electronically recorded, but I wanted both for flexibility, because I didn’t know exactly how I was going to tackle this task—project, actually. That really was the proper definition, because there was a lot of work that would be involved and multiple tasks I’d have to do in its execution.

Still eager, I headed downstairs and decided to first give the place a quick once-over so I could really get a handle on the scope of the project. Sinclair and I had stood just a few feet inside and much of what was stacked there made it difficult to see what else I had to work with. So I wandered around the large space that somehow felt smaller because it was packed so tightly. It reminded me of a bazaar my dad and I had gone to when I was ten or eleven. It was a Christmas sale with lots of vendors and merchants, each with their own table where they sold their wares, crafts, food, and various items. It had been in the high school gym, and the bleachers had been retracted to give more floor space—and I remembered feeling overwhelmed at just how many people and how much stuff was there.

But I refused to let myself feel overwhelmed down here, even if, unlike the bazaar, there weren’t neatly delineated aisles. In fact, I was beginning to view this project as my salvation. Being able to focus on an undertaking of this magnitude could help me better tolerate the time away from my father. Rather than having to clean bathrooms every day while slowly ticking off each number on the calendar, I had something to do that could be meaningful.

And, if not, at least it was interesting and it would keep my mind engaged.

As I wandered through the old ballroom, I discovered a lot of things. First, there were a lot of light bulbs that needed replacing, and when I found the switch for the chandelier, I turned it on, expecting it to be as disappointing. But, even though many of the crystals hanging on it could stand a good cleaning, it still dazzled, giving me just a taste of what this room had been like back when it had been loved.

There were boxes upon boxes and so much furniture; some spots were a tight squeeze—so I didn’t force my way through but figured when I got to a particular spot, I’d move things when I needed to. In the middle of my exploration, Edna arrived at the bottom of the stairs and called me. “Miss Miller?”

“I’m over here. Just a second.” I made my way back through the maze of unwanted items and, when we could see each other, I said, “Please call me Lise.”

She beamed. “I’d be happy to.” Tucked in her left arm were several items that she began handing to me, starting with a bottle of water. “I thought you might be thirsty.”

“Thank you.”

“Here’s the clipboard and paper. I can get you loose leaf if you don’t want the legal pad, and I didn’t know if you’d want a pen or pencil, so I brought both.”

I thanked her again, setting the bottle of water on an old metal four-drawer filing cabinet. “I’ll be using this right away.”

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