of the box was The Magic Faraway Tree.
âHappy to keep it if you want, Button. But no point holding onto stuff for the sake of it.â
I pulled out a few things I didnât really want. Things of no sentimental value. But most of it I really wanted to hang onto for no other reason than I wasnât ready to let go.
âThink you can take a look through your mumâs things?â
I looked over at the two boxes separated out.
âWe can send her what you think she might like to keep,â he said. âOr you could write and tell her whatâs in it and what she wants us to do with it all. Not sure how it got left here.â
I opened the lid of the first box and inhaled a dusty smell of age. I removed the books that sat on top, two photograph albums, to see what was at the bottom. I pulled out packets of fabric and patterns and placed them all around the box until I reached the bottom and there was nothing left. I glanced over to Dad, but he was busy with his own things.
I left it all there, moving onto the next box. The first thing I pulled out was a large, woollen red coat. Underneath that was a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings, pictures cut from magazines. Scribblings in a childâs writing, hand-drawn pictures. At the bottom of the box was an old hardback book. The History of Silk.
âWhatâs this?â I asked Dad, showing him the red coat.
âOh,â he said. âI didnât know we had that. Belongs to your Grandmother Pearl, I think.â
Becky has her grandparents come to dinner once a month on a Sunday evening and she was most surprised to find that our circle of friends didnât observe the same habit relating to family.
âBut donât you have family get-togethers?â
Rachelâs family got together over birthdays and Melissa lived with her grandparents so they were there all the time.
âDonât you find it strange that your mother would leave you?â Becky said. âI canât imagine my mother leaving me.â
Iâd never thought of it like that before. âI donât think she knew what else to do.â
âWell, my mother, if it ever came to that, would never let my father keep either of us. She just wouldnât.â
I didnât know any other girl who only lived with her father. There were boys who lived with their single mothers, but that was relatively normal. Men were always leaving their families. Most men were, in our experience, most likely to be Casanovas. And Casanovas were always ready to move on to another woman. Perhaps there was something safe about honing our teenage senses towards identifying decent boys at fifty paces. If there was some way of knowing which boys were likely to turn out to be decent men, boys that could love us back as passionately as we felt we could love them, then we could banish the likelihood of divorce and unhappiness to a statistically unlikely outcome. It occurred to me, then, that Iâd never heard my mother talk about her father. Only about Pearl. Mum talked of her mother in disappointing tones, and we knew she had done many things wrong or was the kind of woman we shouldnât approve of. Though, on that day, I realised my mother had never told us anything tangible. There were no actual stories, or incidents, just her attitude and judgment.
I remember taking a walk with Pearl through the Botanic Gardens, having high tea somewhere in the city, followed by a tram trip home. Mum had to take Sally to the bathroom to remove the markings of strawberry jam that had slid, like one complete mass, from the top of her scone onto her white blouse. My mother made audible âtut-tutsâ while she attempted to remove the jam with her handkerchief. When this failed she took Sally by the hand to the bathroom. All the while my grandmother laughed. She had large brown eyes and there were deep lines in her skin when she smiled.
âWhat do you know about Pearl,