After my mother died, my father remarried and we moved to a new house.

The new house was large compared to the little house I had lived in with my mother.

I was put on the third floor. When I wasn’t up there I spent time in the basement. It was a different world down there all damp and dark and underground.

There were special things down there like the cedar chest of my mother’s and a heavy wooden and glass china cabinet with some things from my maternal grandmother, Anna, and some of my mother’s wedding presents.

The basement was a place that is where I thought I belonged.