1. 19th Century wood-carved Stollenschrank.  Estimate: 6,000 - 9,000 USD

At the time, it seemed like a remarkable wedding gift, and Hannah knew her mother-in-law intended it to be overwhelming, an indication of what she had suddenly become a part of.  It had been moved into the Westchester house even before Hannah and Michael finished bringing their belongings up from the city.  There it hulked in the entrance hall, the carvings in its front wooden panels too ornate for her eyes to follow.  The glass on the cabinet door reflected her pursed lips, her flushed cheeks, her eyebrows like the strokes of Chinese letters.  She rubbed one of the iron mounts on the door with her finger, disliking instantly the roughness of its age, how irreplaceable it seemed, that it would sit there greeting her guests before she did.  It was older than her mother, older than this house.  It had outlived its creator and become vindictive for it.

2. French mahogany and gilt bronze portico mantle clock, c. 1830.  Estimate: 1,000 – 1,200 USD

 Hannah’s mother Delores demanded to be taken home in the end.  The nurses set her up in her bedroom with the IV standing tall and silver beside her, its tube snaking into her hand atop the brocade bedcover.  For hours she would lie on that bed, staring at the single knick-knack shelf and following the motions of the clock with her eyes.  Such a splendid clock, her father’s prized possession before he’d died and left it to Delores.  She loved its grand mahogany supporting columns and filigreed details like sketches.  The bronze flower pendulum hypnotized her and she forgot, for minutes on end, the burn around the needle.  But in her peripheral vision, she could see the flatness of her torso from the double mastectomy, and she would close her eyes tight until she fell asleep. 

She took some comfort in knowing that her children were all grown and unbound, exulting in their own lives.  But sometimes it surprised her that it was Hannah who came to her side.  It was Hannah who left her husband every weekend to drive down to the city and stay with her, watching her rot, watching her watch the clock and wait for its chimes to remind her that she had survived just one more hour. 

3. Regency style oak bookcase with graduated tiers.  Estimate: 160 - 240 USD

It wasn’t the words but the way they smelled: her father’s books in the extra bedroom he’d used as a study.  After he died when Hannah was four, her mother kept the room locked.  Hannah had few memories of him, but she remembered the smell of the books when she stuck a hairpin into the lock and snuck inside: the faint musty odor of them on his hands when he picked her up, the dryness of it clinging to his sweaters.  She sat on the cold parquet and flipped through one after the other, her ten-year-old body cradling each volume of his Encyclopedia Britannica, his leather-bound collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets, and the small black journal with its silver lock and unreachable pages.  She wanted to stick her hairpin into the lock’s delicate mouth, but she knew her mother would notice.  Her mother wore a tiny key around her neck on a gold chain and sometimes went into the study for hours. 

4. “The Sound of Music” French vintage lobby card.  Estimate: 60 – 90 USD

When Hannah asked, Michael told her he got it at a used bookstore for fifteen bucks.  The first time she went to his apartment the night of their second date, it was hanging over his bed, the embracing silhouette of Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer in a sunny glass room.  In the afterthought of that night, she decided that she could easily see herself slipping into a romantic life with a man who had “La Melodie du Bonheur” and the tentative almost-kiss of new lovers on his wall.  After they slept together for the first time and she took his penis into her mouth like a promise, he gave her the poster.  “I know you like it,” he shrugged shyly, and she felt his eyes lingering on her bare breasts as he rolled it up into a rubber band.  When she visited him after that and the wall remained empty, she insisted they begin spending the nights at her apartment. 

5. Early 20th Century porcelain fluted vase by Lenox.  Estimate: 145 – 200 USD

Delores knew the slanted shape and the smoky color of Hannah’s eyes, the particular curve of her chin.  She knew the dark curling hair and the sighing bow of the baby’s lips.  Seven months after giving birth, she finally knew.  When she picked up the phone, the receiver took a while to warm in her hand.  She never dialed this number from this phone -- only from the payphone on the corner -- but her trembling hands forgot in that moment their normally careful secrecy. 
 She hadn’t heard his voice in weeks, and his greeting surprised her, like the recorded voice of someone long dead.  “She’s yours,” she whispered, and the baby in the bassinet beside her whimpered softly as if she understood, as if her blue-cloud eyes could see her mother’s skin blushing beneath the fingers of a man who was not her husband. 

When there was no response and the phone line went dead, Delores replaced the receiver.  Her eyes fell upon a pair of vases she had just that morning overflowed with budding lilies, the powder blue funnels of each vase wide-mouthed and always receiving.  In a sudden screaming motion, she grabbed the one nearest her and smashed it to the floor.  The shards of porcelain held orgy with the water and flower petals, the vase suddenly silenced the way she would keep her secret.  She reached for the other, but the startled cries of the baby pulled her back, and she left the lonely vase there unharmed as she moved her hands through the baby’s dark hair. 

6. Malachite glass box and cover.  Estimate: 150 – 200 USD

Michael knew it was getting late.  He could see the diamond-like headlights heading up and down Third Avenue as he walked, the old, ornate lamps glowing on some of the small buildings around Gramercy Park.  Something in the window of a small antique shop on 21st Street caught his eye: a petite hexagonal box, its malachite cover carved with the faces of two young girls seemingly about to kiss and surrounded by leaves.  He felt voyeuristic somehow, as if he had happened upon lovers in the forest, the foliage opening window-like before him onto a scene he would never be a part of.  When he stepped down into the basement-level shop and bought the box, he stood holding it for a long while before he took it home.  Inside, he placed a small piece of paper with his hasty letters and the smudge of his thumb across the last ‘s’: “To hold all of your secrets and dreams.”  He wrapped it in silver foil and set it on the table.  He knew Hannah was waiting for him to propose and hoped this would hold her off until then. 

7. Mid-19th Century Biedermeier secretary desk.  Estimate: 2,850 – 4,000 USD

It was a 60th birthday card for her Aunt Bridget up in Maine.  From the front of the card, small pink roses outlined in glitter winked at Hannah, their green leaves wispy with watercolor.  She looked up from the card to see herself in the small mirror set back beneath the carved overhang of the desk, a pale ghost staring out at her from its recesses, and she slid her eyes from the image, unnerved and lonely.  The fold-out writing surface creaked as she leaned on it to write, but she was soon stopped in the middle of “Mom’s doing bet- ” to answer the phone.  When she stood, the corner of the desk jabbed deep into her hip, and she cried out and cursed at the sudden sharp throb as she hobbled across the den to the phone on Michael’s desk.  It was Dr. Patel, her mother’s oncologist.  She was out of remission; a lump had appeared beneath her left armpit and was spreading rapidly.  She was back in the hospital and would undergo a second, immediate mastectomy.

Hannah heard all of this, thanked him, promised to drive down from Westchester that evening, hung up the phone.  She realized that her left hand was still rubbing her hip rhythmically, the pain unceasingly sharp and thudding.  She lifted her hand away and let the ache spread slowly across the bone.  She winced almost immediately, though it was really such a small pain.  Such a small, small pain. 

8. Pair of cabochon emerald and diamond ear clips.  Estimate: 2,000 – 3,000 USD

Hannah glanced into her mother’s bedroom.  The light was out, and all she could hear was her mother’s slight snoring and the ticking of the clock on her shelf.  Guilt coiled through her stomach at leaving Michael behind this weekend, but the nurses said her mother had been complaining for days and had to have her morphine upped.  As she sat there in the living room listening to the traffic three stories below, she decided to call him and make sure he was okay.  She glanced down at the watch he had given her a few weeks earlier: 11:43 p.m.  She went to the kitchen and picked up the wall phone, pulled her right earring off, and dialed.  Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring.

Hannah hung up, slightly worried, and dialed again, twirling the earring in her hand as she waited.  It was shaped like a flower, smooth round emeralds alternating in two circles with  diamonds that winked at her if she turned them toward the dim living room lamp.  The center emerald stared at her like a wide-open eye.  When her grandmother passed them down to her for her sweet sixteen, Hannah had thought them bawdy and oversized, too garish even to wear to a party.

“H – hello?”  Michael’s voice wavered in and out as if he were stifling a giggle.

“Sweetie, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I was… I was sleeping.  What time is it?”  He coughed loudly, a forced sound, and Hannah suddenly felt as if something was wrong. 

“Are you drunk?”

A laugh came bursting across the phone line, and she yanked the receiver away at the sudden static of sound.  “No, no, no… I’m… noooooo…  Just… just tired.  How’s mom?”

Through clenched teeth, she answered, “Sleeping.  I’ll see you tomorrow.”  And she hung up the phone. 

Continue the story

Note: This story is reprinted with permission. Copying this story without the express, written permission of the author is prohibited.

Return to: ... Top of page ... Nick Adams Contest ... Winning stories and authors ... ACM home page