My Sweet Annie

12

On Saturday morning, before I even got out of bed, I texted Mom and Tim to let them know I was alive. The last thing I needed was to get on the police department's radar again with a frantic call from my mother.

Then, I went in to Myrtle to replace my spoiled groceries. Because I had a stock of frozen meals, I got the basics for lighter lunches and breakfasts: sandwich stuff, yogurt, eggs, some salad fixings. I added a couple of bottles of wine, knowing I would need them before the week was out.

Once I got back home, I settled down in the living room with coffee, a notebook, and my iPad, prepared to do some research on what the hell an estate sale even was. Porkie joined me after a few minutes. I helped her up onto the couch.

"You're so high maintenance," I told her. Then I pulled an afghan off the back of the couch and draped it over the dog, tucking her into the folds of green and orange yarn. I expected her to be annoyed, but she actually rested her head on her paws with a soft grumble and closed her eyes.

A few minutes later, after some preliminary searching, I spoke up again. "How did people figure all this stuff out before Google and YouTube?"

Porkie perked her ears up, looking at me with mild interest.

"You never thought about that before, did you? I think about it all the time. No clue how people lived before the Internet. And air conditioning. And indoor plumbing."

The dog offered no comment, but I was beginning to see the appeal of a pet. She was somebody to talk to, company of a sort. With her in the house, I wasn't completely alone.

Over the course of the next couple of hours, my plan began to come together. While I was certain there was a way to handle Gran's home and belongings without an estate liquidator, there was no way I could accomplish it. The professionals would be able to host an estate sale for me and handle most of the hard work of pricing things and coordinating appraisals for anything that was antique, collectible, or otherwise valuable. While Gran had lived a modest life, this home had been in the family for so long that there had to be a couple of desirable antiques here. They could apparently even help with things that didn't sell—donation or disposal or whatever.

What I had to do first was make sure the house was in pretty good order, go through all Gran's belongings to secure anything especially valuable, sentimental, or private, and document what was in the house. The company Edith had recommended was no doubt a reputable one, but in case something was stolen or broken, it seemed like a good idea to go through those extra steps to protect ourselves.

I texted Tim.

ME: Did you know I'm supposed to take pics of everything in the house before this estate sale thing?

ME: Send me your children, they love taking pictures

TIM: If you're looking for seventeen pics up Lee's nose, sure

ME: For the record when Mom goes this is your job

TIM: This got dark

ME: Just calling it

TIM: This isn't shotgun, relax

ME: 🖕

TIM: 🖕🖕

ME: You and your two left hands

TIM: Those are right hands

Damn it. He was right.

ME: Okay nerd

The first logical step was to figure out how I was going to get through the entire house in an orderly manner; the best way to do that, I thought, was to make a list of the rooms in the house, so I started there: living room, dining room, kitchen, the bathroom, Gran's bedroom, mine, Tim's, the studio, and the attic. There was also the shed.