Free The Death of Perry Many Paws by Deborah Benjamin Page B

her mother as a young girl. I’m not sure I would recognize photos of my parents as kids. Maybe Bing would have a different reaction.”
    “He’s younger than Syra so if she doesn’t recognize her mother then he isn’t going to,” I reminded her.
    “Still, it couldn’t hurt to try. What other choice do we have? I’d be interested in asking Claudia more about the kids in the photo and what became of them and if she knows what happened to Hetty Foster. We know what happened to Claudia, Franklin and Sybil. But what about that Edward person?” Grace asked.
    “Edmund. Edmund Close. No idea what happened to him. Are there any Closes around here? Do either of you remember any family named Close when you were growing up?” I asked Cam and Grace. They were both Birdsey Falls natives whereas I was the outsider who had only lived here for twenty-five years.
    Cam refilled his and Grace’s coffee cups and sat back down. “There was a guy named Close in high school, wasn’t there, Grace? He had a strange first name.”
    Grace shook her head.
    “I remember him because we were in a couple of gym classes together. He never hung out with anyone that I can remember. Sort of a loner. His last name was definitely Close though. I remember that. Maybe he was the son of this Edmund Close.”
    “Let’s get out your high school yearbooks and check him out,” I suggested. “Maybe there were other Closes in other grades that you didn’t know about ...”
    “I didn’t even know about the Close who was in my own class …” Grace interjected.
    “Maybe they were all reclusive.”
    “And maybe they are no relation to Edmund Close. Just because they have the last name doesn’t mean they were related,” Cam reminded us. “Also, I have no idea where my high school yearbooks are. It may take me a while to track them down.”
    “Let me look for mine first, Cam; my house is much smaller than yours …” Grace’s voice trailed off as she remembered that she wasn’t exactly living at her house right now.
    Cam picked up on Grace’s discomfort before I did. “Come to think of it, I’m sure mine are in my old bedroom someplace. Let me check in there. It’s easier than you going home to look for yours, Grace.”
    “Yeah, you should see his old bedroom. His mother left it like a shrine with all his old posters on the walls and clothes in the closet.It’s kind of creepy but also an interesting look back into the teen-aged Cam. Now Abbey expects us to do the same with her room. In a few generations we will have a museum of social history here with examples of bedrooms from teenagers of several generations.”
    “That’s actually not a bad idea for a museum. I’d enjoy walking down a hallway with an example of a bedroom from several generations of fifteen-year-olds. Do you have your dad’s bedroom from when he was a teenager?” Grace asked.
    “No, the shrine starts with Cassandra’s and my rooms and continues with Abbey’s. When my grandchild gets his or her bedroom enshrined we’ll be ready to open the museum up for viewing. I think we need at least three generations to make it interesting,” Cam laughed.
    Grace began clearing the dishes but I shooed her back to her seat and took over rinsing and putting the dishes into the dishwasher. Cam waved the coffee pot around inquisitively and when Grace declined, poured the rest of the coffee into his cup.
    Mellowed by chocolate, we headed into the library to once again join Mycroft lounging by the fire. I started thinking about Cam’s and my future in this huge old house. If I got to the point that I couldn’t get up and down the stairs, I think I would move my bedroom into the library. I could easily live in just this room, the kitchen and the solarium and be happy. I didn’t picture Cam and I ever leaving our home but who could predict how we would feel about the house if one of us were gone. Sometimes you just know it’s time to move on.
    “What did you and Hugh decide to