The Signed Inventory Put Me Back Inside My Aunt's Warehouse

Lena cleared a space on her desk for my box.

"Tell me what you know," she said. "Then tell me what you suspect. Keep them separate."

I gave her the trust, the inventory, the deed, Della's scans, and the invoice for Book 17.

She read without speaking. Outside her office, a delivery truck backed down a narrow Beaufort street. Its warning bell sounded six times before Lena reached the last inventory page.

"There," she said.

Soraya's signature sat below mine. Under mine were the words: Inventory prepared and verified by Shirin Farahani.

"She completed the transfers," Lena said. "The trust owns the warehouse and these books. A later will couldn't give away property she no longer owned herself."

"Even if that will were real?"

"Even then. We still challenge it. But these are two separate problems."

She brought out the successor form. I read it, then signed.

It did not make the books my personal collection. It made me responsible for them. I could hire help, pay proper bills, and protect the archive. I could not sell a volume to fix my own roof.

"Your cousin thinks you're asking for a share," Lena said.

"I'm asking for the keys."

"Now you have the documents to ask as trustee."

Her first bill would start with a $3,500 deposit. I paid from my savings. We marked it as an advance for trust expenses, subject to review, so it would not disappear into a vague family debt.

By afternoon, she had sent a demand to Kamran's lawyer and filed requests to preserve the property and records. She also filed my objection in the probate matter.

I spent that night making a plain list of every known book, every last inspection date, and every person with a key.

I wanted to call Kamran. Instead, I checked my list against the signed inventory again.

Two days later, a judge ordered that no books leave, no sales money move, and no business records be destroyed while we sought a fuller hearing. Kamran had to allow a joint inspection.

His lawyer called Lena afterward.

"My client understood himself to be helping the family," he said on speaker.

Lena looked at the $14,800 invoice.

"Then his records should help us too."

We entered the warehouse Friday morning with a book conservator named Elise Ward. Kamran brought his lawyer and stood beside the light switch.

"Nothing has been lost," he said.

"We'll record what we find," I said.

Elise set a padded table near the shelves. We checked each volume against its number, cover marks, page count, and the old condition photographs.

Book 8 had a bent clasp. The bend matched my photograph.

Book 12 smelled faintly sour.

"Don't wipe that," I told Kamran when he reached for a cloth. "The surface needs testing."

He threw the cloth onto the cart.

At slot 17, I found a blue folder made to look the same height as the books on either side.

Inside were color copies of twelve pages.

The original volume had two hundred and six.

"A working substitute," Kamran said.

"Where is the original?" Elise asked.

"On loan."

"To whom?"

"I don't carry every detail in my head."

His lawyer took out a pad.

By noon we had counted eighty-five original books and eleven folders. Some folders were empty. Others held printouts cropped so closely that the page numbers had vanished.

Elise placed each substitute in its own sleeve. We photographed every shelf before moving anything.

"You can't say the collection is incomplete because it's being studied elsewhere," Kamran said.

I held up the Ohio invoice.

He read the buyer's name and stopped talking.

"Seven volumes are loans," he said at last. "Four are being shown."

"A loan has a return date," I said. "This has a price."

His lawyer asked for a private conversation.

While they went outside, I found a narrow drawer of reference swatches under Soraya's desk. Mine lay at the top: madder red, walnut brown, indigo blue. She had saved the little samples I mailed with my letters.

I pressed my blue ladder between two fingers and went back to counting.

At four, we signed an inspection sheet. Both lawyers received copies. So did Elise. Kamran refused to sign, and Lena recorded his refusal without comment.

He watched me accept a warehouse key under the court's order.

"You always did like being the teacher's pet," he said.

"I liked knowing where things were."

That evening, a message arrived from Nora Pike, his shipping assistant.

There was one attachment, labeled Shipping Export.

Her message said, He told me to erase this list. I saved it before I left.