Reliquary

Day Minders for 2009 and 2010 with nothing written in them.

An emery board.

A cuticle pusher.

A small pair of scissors.

A box of Bandaids.

A mirror and comb.

Tweezers.

A lipstick, coral, ordered from Bloomingdale’s.

A tissue blotter with a coral imprint: her thin, creased lips.

A pouch of coupons, all of which expired before her estate could be inventoried.

A wallet with three twenties, a ten, two quarters, two dimes, a nickel and five pennies, because it’s important to keep cash on hand, which is what the Clerk of Court’s form calls it: “cash on hand.” $70.80.

An unfilled prescription.

Five pens and a pencil.

Pictures of children: great-nieces and great-nephews who, even if they knew her, won't remember her.

Keys to a climate-controlled storage unit full of framed prints, record albums, songbooks, and boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of unused stamps the Post Office won’t buy back.

Credit cards from the department stores where she liked to go shoe-shopping on her way home from the beauty parlor.  Every week, even after the cancer, after her fall, when she was on oxygen and had little stamina, she managed to get her hair done.  When she went out, she stayed out as long as possible, shopping until she was exhausted, leaving the caregiver to deal with her invalid partner.  Now her closet is full of shoes, many never unboxed.  They could be sent to tornado victims if the Red Cross took shoes but they don’t, it’s money only.

Hand lotion.

Hand sanitizer.

A safety pin.