Out of the Box(8)

“You’re sure you’re ready for this?”

I laugh. “I’m ready. Are you?” I’ve got on my oldest pair of shorts. They’re too small and have faded to an ugly pink instead of red, but they’re perfect for cleaning out a basement.

My aunt shakes her head. “Nope. Definitely not ready. Do you have any idea how long this is going to take?”

I shrug and plod down the wooden steps behind her. For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved organizing. When I was little, I liked to sort out the recipes Mom clipped from the newspaper and piled in a corner of the kitchen counter. Once I offered Dad my allowance to let me organize his office. Jeanette’s basement has always been a mess, full of everything from books about Mexican microwave cookery to bags of stamps from fifty years ago. Everything that’s ever interested Jeanette or Alison— and lots of things that haven’t—is down here. You never know what you’ll find if you move a box or kick aside a pile of magazines.

“I don’t mind helping,” I say.

Jeanette glances back at me. “You don’t have to, you know. Alison would have understood. She never did agree with child labor.”

I laugh. “Aunt Jeanette, you’re stalling.”

She surveys the dark, low-ceilinged room. I can already picture the place empty and swept clean. I feel like an explorer, about to discover new worlds.

“Oh god,” Jeanette says, picking up a tattered pink hula skirt. “Where do we start?”

I smirk. “Looks like you just did.”

She tosses the skirt onto the stairs—the only available space—and we begin picking through stuff. Behind two boxes of chipped bright orange dishes, I find a stack of books about octopuses. Beyond that is a red guitar case and a reclining bicycle. A bag of tap-dancing shoes sits on top of some mountaineering gear. To the right is a set of golf clubs.

“Golf clubs?” I ask. “Since when—?”

“The putting green in the park. We wanted to use it, since we’re so close, and we found a few putters at a garage sale, but the guy wouldn’t let us leave without the entire set of clubs.”

I nod and hold up a 1972 orangutan calendar. We both laugh.

An hour later, the place doesn’t look much different. I’ve started two piles—one to keep for the sale and one to throw out—and Jeanette is squatting in front of a bookshelf, engrossed in the history of Borneo. I’ve discovered a black cube-shaped instrument case, less dusty than most of the stuff down here. I blow the dust off and pull gently at the handle. My heart speeds up. I can think of only one instrument—an accordion—that would fit in a case like this, and one person—Alison—who might own one.

I press the latches, and they flip open easily. A soft red cloth covers something too small to be an accordion. I sigh and feel a wave of guilt as I realize what the contents might really be. I didn’t get to see Alison while she was sick, but Mom says the whole house was filled with medical equipment. After the funeral, Mom helped Jeanette clear it up. They probably put it all down here in the basement. What I’m looking at is probably some sort of medical device from when Alison was sick.

Instead of honoring Alison’s memory, I’m thinking only of myself. I glance back over my shoulder. My aunt has placed the book on the floor beside her and is pulling another off the shelf. She’s smiling.

I consider shutting the case, but instead, I peek under the red cloth and gasp. It’s not medical equipment, and it’s not an accordion. It’s something even better than an accordion.

“You found the bandoneón!” Jeanette says, appearing beside me. “I brought it down here when we needed more space upstairs, and I lost track of it. Alison bought it right before she got sick.”

My aunt doesn’t look anything like depressed, so I stop trying to hide my excitement. I know, because I saw one at a tango festival last year, that a bandoneón is a tango instrument, smaller than a regular accordion. It has buttons on both sides instead of piano keys.

“Alison bought it on a whim and was determined to learn how to play it. You know what she was like.” Jeanette’s smile is bigger now. “She even found someone to take lessons from.”

I ask her if I can take it out of its case. She nods, and I lift the instrument gingerly from its box. I slip my hands into the handles and draw the bellows apart. The bandoneón wheezes. I press a button and push the folds back together again. It wails. I pull. Wheeze. Press another button and push. Squeak. Jeanette sticks out one arm, curves the other as though around a woman’s waist and strides like a tango dancer down a narrow path through all the junk. She grabs the hula skirt, ties it on and dances up the stairs and back down. The instrument keeps squawking and honking like an asthmatic goose, and soon we’re both laughing so hard that we sound like sick birds too.