The ‘Keep’ Pile

My mother announced that she was going to declutter: pare down the excess in her house. Much of this was, admittedly, boxes of mine and my sister’s that had been stored in her attic since we were children. She asked me to come over, sift through them, and take anything I wanted to keep.

I arrive around dinnertime one evening, already exhausted from a long day at school. I direct the creative writing program at a university in Philadelphia, and had spent the better part of the day sitting in meetings, wading through emails. I’d tiredly edited a few pages of my novel on the subway ride home. My husband, Jake, is working late, so I’ve brought along our two-year-old, Theo. Still, I foolishly imagine I’ll be able to put a sizable dent in the boxes, which my mom has already hauled downstairs. What I find waiting is a mountain of cardboard: 19 boxes, soft and sagging, seams