them in a row, counts them like she used to. Most are swimming trophies. Each figurine looks as if it might dive from its marble promontory and onto basement cement.

 

As she massages one of the figurines, she says, “I think I’m going to leave the trophies. Did you taste the wine?”

 

I haven’t. I’m paranoid about leaving my DNA on the mug, but she watches expectantly, so I tilt an ounce or more down my throat and cough louder than she had.

 

“Shiiit,” I say stupidly. “It’s like moonshine wine.”

 

We are surrounded by woven baskets brimming with Beanie Babies, Furbies, Cabbage Patch Kids, Little Ponies, Treasure Trolls, and a forlorn Pound Puppy called Jericho Too. There are transparent Tupperware containers with pog discs and voodoo sticks, laser pointers and puzzles, Sega Wires tangled with Skip It, a Gameboy crusted with Gak, kneepads and goggles, a long-dead chartreuse digital pet Tamagotchi (“friend” in Japanese).

 

I peer inside the Easy Bake Oven. “There are still brownie crumbs in here,” I laugh.

 

She is emptying the arrowheads from the tackle box, manically filling her large purse. Her age fluctuates as she uses her hands like trowels, a palm’s worth scooped with each sweep. She is a child or she is grown. It’s uncertain warpath play. When the top tray compartments are empty, she pries the box further to reveal a second and third tray. She empties these too. Beneath all is a larger compartment: in it an ancient shank to which Indians affixed the arrowheads. 

 

“Oh my God,” she says, ignoring the shank, instead removing a glass jar. Lifting it meekly, bringing it near to her face, her right eye magnified by convex glass, she seems devastated by all the teeth.