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of this box? I see my parents in my mind so clearly; they are eating breakfast—their whole-grain porridge—as silently as two people ice fishing in separate shacks. Even if it’s bad like that, I’m going because I love Madge. She’s strong and sharp-tongued and she sees in me something I can’t even see in myself. She loves some unseen quality—a better Godfrey—and she makes me want to live up to it. When she’s disappointed in me, it’s only because she believes in me with such conviction. No one has ever believed in me the way Madge does—no Little League coach, no Boy Scout troop leader, no friend, no enemy, no teacher, not even my parents. God, it feels good to be around someone who knows you can do better, be better. With Madge, I am better—or at least getting there.
    I look up Wickham Purdy in a nationwide database of obituaries and, sure enough, he’s dead. In fact, he died the year I was born. He was married to a woman named Netta, who’d died two years earlier. No survivors. His name will be announced on our public records website, and after a sixty-day waiting period, his belongings will be confiscated by the U.S. government.
    I press my oversized UNCLAIMED: HOLD stamp into the red ink pad. I can hear Bart stamping away. Lately I’ve grown suspicious of Bart’s stamping speed. Does he really investigate the goods for clues, or is he a blind stamper, just assuming that no one is coming for this stuff ?
    I check the time. “I have to cut out for a bit,” I tell Bart.
    His face pops out from behind the partition. Bart was a great golfer at one point, but he gave it up because it made him nauseous to putt in front of people. He looks like a golfer still—athletic with a paunch, mostly ordinary. “What for?” he asks.
    I pick something below the waist, figuring it’s private enough not to beg questions. “Um, I may have something wrong with my gallbladder.”
    “Really? My family’s full of gallbladder issues. What’s the problem?” Bart looks at me like a concerned physician.
    Perfect. “What? You’re a gallbladder expert all of a sudden?”
    “Like I said, it runs in the family. That’s all.”
    “Well, I’d prefer not to discuss it.” I shove my arms into my coat sleeves, hoping the gesture ends the conversation.
    “I was just asking what kind. There are many different types of problems.” Bart is reaching around my cubicle, picking up my can of soda, still mostly full. He takes a sip. “I was just expressing my sincere . . .”
    “Don’t do that,” I interrupt.
    “What?”
    “Don’t drink my soda. That’s disgusting.” I’m trying to knock Bart off topic.
    “What? Since when is that a big deal?”
    I glare at him before walking angrily out of the office. Now I’m the asshole who gets pissed off over soda.
    I FIND DR. CHIN’S office in the center of a strip mall, wedged between a Bagel Hut and a Nail-A-Rama. I sit in my car, the motor still running, and stare at the plate-glass storefront window. Its drawn red velvet curtains make me think of prostitution. I’ve never been with a prostitute and suddenly that seems shortsighted. I can’t now. I’m almost engaged—Madge still hasn’t put the ring on, but she is still in possession of it. I think this means we’re more engaged than not engaged, but I’m not sure.
    Chin’s placard reads:
    Dr. Chin, PhD, MD, ESQ, CPA
    Now Offering:
    The Future—For Curious People
    (Also inquire about minor surgeries, overseas adoptions, mail-order bride services, pet euthanasia, notarization, and medicinal herbage.)
    This is all very disconcerting, though I’m intrigued by “medicinal herbage.” Chin used to be a lawyer and an accountant? What’s the PhD in, anyway? Home decor or psychiatry? What kinds of minor surgeries? And is that “curious people” a play on words—curious as in full of questions or just plain weird? Is he messing with us? I am trying to make a mental list of things to ask him but the list is getting