What the Cabinet Kept

### Nessa

The cabinet key was on my mother’s ring, though I had never seen her use it. I found it in the shallow drawer beneath her repair desk, among a button hook, two blunt needles, and the brass tag for the shop’s old front door. The key fit the cabinet lock on the first try.

Iria stood behind me, coat still on. She had followed me down without saying whether she wanted to be alone with my mother’s things. I left the key in the lock and waited.

“You can open it,” she said. “I’ll tell you if I need to stop.”

The cabinet door stuck at the bottom. I eased it free with my palm. Inside, narrow shelves held bundles of repair slips, a stack of notebooks, and a brown envelope tied with faded green ribbon. My mother had sorted the papers by date. Most labels were in her neat hand. The ones on the bottom shelf had been written fast enough to lean downhill.

I took out the notebook marked October 2005–06. Its cover had softened at the corners from handling. Iria watched me set it on the table.

“You don’t have to read it aloud,” she said.

“I know.”

I opened to the first dated page. There was a note about the river steps, the soaked book, and the woman who couldn’t remember where she lived. My mother had written down the names exactly as Hollis remembered them: Nessa, then Iria Vale. Below that, in the margin, she had added: *She asked me to use the second one.*

Iria’s fingers rested on the back of a chair. She didn’t correct anything.

The next entry was dated October 15, 2006. My mother described the rear stair, the wet coat, the blue thread at the woman’s wrist. Near the end, a line had been underlined twice: *She asked whether the boy had answered. She said she had told him not to.*

I read it again. “You came back to her after the basement.”

“I was trying to find the way out.” Iria’s voice stayed level. “The passage had taken me somewhere else. Your mother was there.”

“Did you tell her Milo’s name?”

“I don’t remember. I might have.” She pulled the chair out but didn’t sit. “I was trying to leave the name Nessa behind. Names were the only thing I thought I could bargain with.”

A second line appeared beneath my mother’s account, written in darker ink. *She left before I could ask whether she wanted me to keep her there.*

I looked at Iria. She was reading over my shoulder now, her hand curled around the chair back. The small muscles in her wrist stood out beneath the blue thread.

“My mother wanted you to stay,” I said.