Down in the basement his things had been carefully laid out, yet there seemed to be no order to them. Track shoes were next to architect scales and old pocket books. A comb sat next to an engineer's notebook and an old compass. At first I didn't dare touch anything. And then I was touching everything, feeling the smoothness of the comb in my hands, the worn leather of his track shoes and sliding the slide rule. I ran my fingers along the ink spots splashed across pages in the old notebooks: speckly chaos next to perfect handwriting, straight lines up and down, over and across. Somehow they made him seem more human. More real.* * *
I stepped inside the room and away from the crowd. Before long Paul joined me. "These are all his," he said, pulling out thin sheets of tracing paper so fragile I was afraid to touch them, but not afraid enough. I was amazed at the detail: the scrolls, the lines, the shading, the perfectly straight handwriting, the tiny letters. "Architects marveled over his renderings," he said. "No one could render like he could." There was no order to the drawings - just one heaping pile of projects spilling out of a portfolio as large as a drafting desk. I tried to find partners for everything, matching elevations and floor plans. Interiors, exteriors, kitchens, restaurants, store fixtures. My favorite was a store front in Boston. I found as many of the sketches and elevations as I could and stacked them in a pile. I wanted to fold the whole thing up, tuck it under my arm and walk out the front door. I wouldn't keep it forever, just long enough to examine each drawing closely. To trace his lettering. To see how he made the curves of his "R's" so distinctly his. So Grandpa Percy. Long enough to try to root some of him in me. To learn from the very pages held in his hands. Instead, I set them in a neat pile and walked out of the room to rejoin the rest of the celebration, stopping at the adjacent table to look at a picture of Grandpa and Uncle John in the factory, Grandpa looking ever so dapper. I think Catherine was right when she said he's the most handsome man she's ever known.
* * *
I heard Ruth coming down the stairs. I put the comb back in its case, folded it up and placed it on the floor, exactly how it had been. I straightened the track shoes, laces flopping over one another. I stood back to look at it all. Grandpa's everyday things turned treasures neatly lined up in rows without order. She came and stood next to me. "These all belonged to him, you know," she said. We stood on the green carpet, afternoon sunlight beaming through the patio doors. "I know."
