It is early—not yet seven o’clock—but she has been up for hours, unable to sleep for the yammering of starlings gathered in the trees outside and the oddly empty racing of her mind, so she’s decided to give in, get up, and start the day. It is the first day of what is forecasted to be a heat wave; when Joan pulls down the attic’s hatch door, she can immediately sense the sweltering air above, which makes the hallway seem cool by comparison. She extends the rickety folding ladder and carefully climbs up; her heart falls when she emerges through the hatch and looks around. She can’t recall the last time she was up here, but it is more crowded than she remembers. What used to be an attic at their house in Maryland was converted into a bedroom by the people who owned the house before Joan and Anders moved in seventeen years ago, and so everything of theirs that one might keep in an attic is kept here, and the space is filled to capacity. Trunks and boxes are piled in the middle of the room, where the ceiling is highest.
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