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you make a lamp shaped like a sphinx, is the real sphinx made larger or smaller by that? If a bird takes a shoe, is it more than a shoe or less?
    â€œ ‘Palo Alto,’ ” said Tilda. “ ‘Interviews, 1990-92.’ ‘Photos slash Ventura.’ ‘Receipts, 1974-84.’ Christmas cards . . . Datebook 1989.”
    She realigned the boxes and moved to the next stack. The box on the top here was small—a shoe box with one crushed corner, the lid bound on with twine. When Rima shone the light on the label, she saw the single word “Bim.”
    Tilda did not read this aloud. She took the flashlight back from Rima, since the stacks had narrowed and now there wasn’t room for them both. It was possible the label meant nothing to Tilda. Rima couldn’t see her face, just the black, unblinking eyes of the snake tattoo.
    The label was probably about the character Bim and not her father anyway. Or maybe she’d misread it. It could have been Bin. Or Ben. BIM. Bank of Inner Mongolia. Bureau of Interstellar Management.
    â€œI had a phone call from Martin.” Tilda’s head was down. She straightened and turned to Rima, dust and dog hair swimming in the flashlight beam between them. “My son,” she said. “Not that I was much of a mother, his dad raised him. Did a great job, he’s a great kid. Well. Not really a kid anymore. Twenty-six.”
    Oliver would have been twenty-six if he’d lived. Rima felt an instant dislike for Martin, who got to be twenty-six years old and probably didn’t even appreciate it. It was such an unfair feeling that having it made her sneeze again. “Bless you,” Addison said, which Rima didn’t deserve; it only added to the guilt.
    â€œHe’s coming over Friday after work. Okay if I give him a bedroom? I hate him to be on the Seventeen after dark.”
    â€œMartin’s always welcome.” Addison glanced at Rima.
    Here is what the glance meant: Don’t worry. No way will Martin stay the night. Here’s what Rima thought it meant: I know I said you’d have the whole floor to yourself, and now I’m sorry I said so.
    â€œ ‘Letters slash Maxwell’?” Tilda asked.
    â€œBingo,” Addison said.
    The box was large enough that Tilda needed two hands to pick it up. She handed the flashlight to Addison. The light bounced about the attic, hitting the sphinx lamp, the dining room chairs, Rima’s shoes. It swept the Santas, brushed over the shoe box with the crushed corner, turned a dachshund’s (Berkeley’s) eyes to mirrors.
    â€œYou’ll like Martin,” Tilda told Rima, and from the darkness behind Tilda’s shoulder, Addison gave Rima another look, hard and right at her.
    This look meant: Martin’s a conniving little snot. Here’s what Rima thought it meant: I know I said you’d have the whole floor to yourself, and now I’m sorry I said so.

(2)
    There were more letters in the box than Rima would have expected, and they were jumbled together, some in envelopes, some not, some typewritten, some by hand, and none in any order that Rima could discern. She wondered if Maxwell had answered any of them; she wished she’d thought to ask. Though honestly, she wasn’t as interested in the letters as Addison had assumed; it had simply seemed rude to say so. She would rather have brought down the box with her father’s name on it.
    Since her father’s death, she’d lacked the concentration for books. The letters were short and undemanding, and just enough like reading to substitute for reading. She read a few that night before she went to sleep.
    The first was on three-ringed binder paper, in a faded blue ink. There was no envelope.
    1410 King St.
    Jackson Hole, Wyoming
July 7, 1981
    Â 
    Dear Maxwell,
    I think you would like me if you knew me, we have a lot in common. We were both raised by our fathers and we both had lonely childhoods. A