Ted was right in guessing that they’d find something down here. There was enough clutter around the room for it to remind Ben of his own basement. The difference was that he could tell that this house’s former inhabitants had kept the space orderly. Wooden milk crates were stacked along the walls, holding everything from folded clothing to sewing materials to empty mason jars. So much left behind, Ben thought. Every object that remained was an unanswered question.
“Knew there’d be something,” Ted said. He showed Ben a wooden fire engine, its once-red paint faded to pink. “Wheels still work.” Ted spun them around the screws they were fastened to. “You want it for the boys?”
“Sure.” Ben doubted Charlie would be interested in the homemade plaything, but Ted’s enthusiasm surprised him and he didn’t want to quash it.
“I can’t believe how little we know about these people,” Ted said. “Do you ever wonder about them? Were they happy? Did their dreams come true?” He looked around the room as if trying to pull clues.
“Not if their dreams included living in a house with a roof.”
“Who’s going to remember them if not us, Ben?” Ted asked. “Don’t you care?”
“I guess,” Ben said. These people were gone, but their blood pulsed through his body with every beat of his heart. Compared to that, this place and these things were inert and meaningless.
“Who’s going to remember us when we’re gone?”
“Christ, Ted,” Ben said. He should have known his brother’s sudden sensitivity had a heart of narcissism. “Little young for a midlife crisis.”
“What I mean is—family—we’re supposed to be there for each other, right?”
“Sure.”
“I know I can depend on you, Benj,” Ted said.
Ben walked to another set of shelves, feigning interest in the contents of a mason jar.
“And you can count on me. For anything.”
“Okay, Ted,” Ben said. “Good to know.”
“But I’m serious,” Ted said.
Ben turned to his brother and saw the earnestness on his face.
“No matter what it is,” Ted said. “I’m here to help.”
“I get it,” Ben said. He tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice. “I do.”
“Okay,” Ted said after a few long moments. He resumed looking through the shelf he was in front of. “This must have been hers, don’t you think?” He handed Ben a faceless rag doll clothed in a yellow dress.
“Must have been,” Ben said, though it could have been anyone’s. He was just glad for a change in subject.
“Anything over there?” Ted asked.
“Old newspapers, some empty jars, old clothing, blankets and linens, that kind of thing.” The closeness of the damp space was beginning to remind Ben of a mausoleum. He could envision skulls in the shadows of the wall and decaying bodies underfoot.
Ted pulled a folded bundle from a crate and shook it open, sending a cloud of dust into the air.
“Quilts,” Ted said. The one he’d unfolded was composed of faded triangles of assorted fabrics. “Maybe her mother sewed this. God, I don’t even know her mother’s name.”
Ben walked over and shook another quilt free of dust. “Here’s your answer,” he said after he looked at what he’d found.
Ted held the quilt taut and used the flashlight app from his phone to better see it. The quilt was a yellowing white except for light-blue patches that had been inscribed with names. “Her mother’s name was Emily,” he said. He was looking at the lowest branches of a family tree. “Grams was born in 1924. And she had a brother, did you know that? Owen, born 1928. This goes back to 1721. Jonas Lowell and Clara.”
“They both died in 1777.” Ben was still holding the quilt in front of him so Ted could see it. “Do we have any cousins?”
“Not as far as I can tell,” Ted said.
Even from his poor vantage point, Ben could see that the Lowell family tree was an unusually narrow one.
“Not Lowells, anyway, assuming Grams’s brother didn’t have any kids.”
The sun had fallen behind a bank of clouds or the house’s crumbling walls, leaving the cellar in near darkness.
“You want to take this topside?” Ben asked him. “If you want to see the rest of the property, we should do it before the sun goes down.”
They felt their way up the narrow steps to the first floor and climbed out of the ruin. Ben was relieved to be in the fresh air of the living world. The sun was stretching for the horizon, the light beginning to ripen.
Ben called for Hudson, and the beagle bounded out of the grass. He was covered in flaxen briars and dandelion seeds that he shook off in a fit of movement, sending his broad ears slapping against his head. He trotted to Ben, brushing himself against Ben’s jeans. Ben gave him a vigorous rub and noticed how lean and muscular the beagle had become.
“Anything to see in particular?” Ted asked him.
“There’s an old barn, but it’s not much more than a pile of kindling. I could show you the land demarcations. The parcel’s about eighty acres, according to the lawyer.”
They made their way east through the tall grass. The cloying sense of discomfort Ben had gotten from the sad little house faded as they walked through the fields. The faint hum of insects and the whisper of wind through the brush were interrupted only by the shuffle of their footsteps. The grass had grown so long that it was beginning to seed. Ben ran his hands over the tops of the stalks as he walked, letting their silken pods brush against his palms. Hudson trotted a groove through the grass a few yards away, sending a flurry of insects aloft in his wake.