My Family Tried to Evict Me from the Craftsman House My Grandparents Left Me
I walked through the dark hallway to the library at the back of the house. The smell of beeswax and old paper was stronger here, preserved in the cedar shelves that my grandfather had built himself. I did not turn on the overhead light, choosing instead the small brass lamp on the writing desk.
On the middle shelf, between two volumes of historical records, sat the leather-bound journal my grandfather had kept during his years as a carpenter.
I pulled it from the shelf, its cover smooth and worn against my fingers. The leather was cold, but the pages inside were dry and thick. I sat down at the desk, clearing away the tax folders and the bank statements I had spent months organizing.
I opened the journal to the first page. My grandfather’s handwriting was small and precise, the blue ink still clear after forty years.
He had recorded the dimensions of the porch stairs, the cost of the cedar panels, and the dates of the winter rains. On one of the later pages, written in the year I was born, he had noted the planting of the rosebushes along the southern fence.
