We Counted Empty Spaces While My Aunt Watched The Door

I forwarded the message to Celia.

She called Mireya's lawyer while I sat in my car outside her office. Twenty minutes later, both lawyers had signed a written agreement: no cleanout, no sales, no moved boxes until the court could hear us.

We would inspect the collection together the following morning.

“Save the photograph,” Celia said. “Save the message around it, too.”

I saved both.

At the warehouse, Mireya wore Grandma's yellow scarf. She stood beneath the old sign that read PEÑA PIANO REPAIR.

“All this expense,” she said. “Your grandmother would hate it.”

Celia handed her a copy of the agreement.

“We're here to count.”

Mireya's lawyer, Mr. Doss, carried a legal pad. He had the tired look of a man who had learned something new after billing for something old.

We began at the north wall.

I called each number. Celia checked the inventory. Mr. Doss photographed each drawer before we touched it.

Blue thread. Brown box. Number. Title. Condition.

Grandma had built the collection over forty years. Some rolls held music cut by small Utah workshops. Others had pencil marks from church halls, dance teachers, and traveling players. Several were the only copies we had ever found.

You could buy a common waltz for twelve dollars. One of Grandma's local dance sets had been valued at three thousand.

Mireya watched the door.

“How many?” she asked after an hour.

“We're still counting.”

“I have a roofing estimate at noon.”

“Then tell them where to leave it,” Celia said.

Roll forty-four stood in its proper place. Its paper leader had a split along one edge. Grandma had called it the Bench Song because nobody remembered its first title.

I asked Mr. Doss to photograph the roll and its repair envelope together.

Mireya stepped forward.

“That's just rubbish from her desk.”

“The codicil includes repair notes,” Celia said. “Let's record what's there.”

I tipped the envelope over a clean sheet.

My patch sketch came out first. Then a thin carbon copy folded twice. A second copy clung to it where old repair paste had dried.

I did not unfold them until Mr. Doss had taken another photograph.

The first was a sales receipt dated January 10.

Three collector rolls. Four thousand two hundred dollars. Buyer: Ada Cole, Providence, Rhode Island.

The roll numbers were twelve, seventy-nine, and one hundred forty.

All three spaces were empty.

The second receipt showed two rolls sold to Owen Voss in Tulsa for two thousand eight hundred dollars on January 22.

Mireya reached for the sheet.

Mr. Doss put his pad down between her hand and the papers.

“Let me read those, Mireya.”

“Mother asked me to thin things out.”

“When?” Celia asked.

“In the winter.”

“Was there a written instruction?”

“We were family. We spoke.”

I looked at the January dates. Grandma had still been alive. She had called me every evening from her recliner, asking whether the winter air was drying the roll paper.

She had asked about number seventy-nine twice.

“She thought they were here,” I said.

“You didn't hear every conversation.”

“That's true.”

I gave the receipts to Celia.

There was no good answer I could force from Mireya in that room. There were two addresses we could check.

By eleven, we had counted one hundred sixty-three rolls.

Twenty-three were missing.

I checked the count again from the bottom drawer up. A clerk once had put a long roll in a short box, so I opened every box with permission. We found no hidden pair and no wrong number.

“You think I can't count?” Mireya asked.

“I'm checking my count.”

Mr. Doss marked the second pass on his pad. He photographed the empty spaces with their drawer labels in view. Then Celia asked him to send the original photographs to both offices, so nobody would have to depend on my phone.

Mr. Doss wrote the shortage on his pad and asked Mireya to initial it. She refused. He signed beneath the count himself, noting that she had declined.

“This is harassment,” she said.

“This is an inventory,” he answered.

Celia asked to inspect the back storage room. Mireya said it held roofing supplies and that the key was at home.

We recorded that answer, too.

Before leaving, I picked up my apron with permission. The cloth felt stiff where glue had dried across the pocket.

“You always did hoard scraps,” Mireya said.

I folded it into my tool carton.

At Celia's office, we scanned both receipts. Her assistant found a public number for Ada's small music archive. I called with Celia beside me and asked whether Ada had bought three rolls from my grandmother's warehouse.

There was a long pause.

“Who told you to call?” Ada asked.

“I'm her granddaughter.”

“Your aunt said your grandmother was already dead.”

I read the receipt date again.

Then Ada said, “There's something else. The other buyers are expecting a shipment this Friday.”