He didn’t want to work with this woman. But with another payment to Serenity Palms Recovery due next week, he could hardly afford to be choosy

11:30–2:30 Silver, session #3

Naftali always consulted with his daily planner, even though he never forgot his schedule. He liked seeing all the hours of the day neatly filled and accounted for.

At 11:28 a.m., he was in front of Mirna Silver’s semi-detached home. He dug out his keyring, quickly found the one labeled MS, unlocked the door and slipped inside. The musty scent of mothballs and aging filled the air, but he barely noticed it; it was the smell that had permeated his workdays for years.

He noted with satisfaction the neatly stacked, labeled boxes piled up against the far wall in the living room.

An easy job. The kids had been clear: We want the photo albums, her paintings, the seforim, and anything small with a value of more than $100. Everything else should go. Donate the furniture and dump the rest.

One more solid day’s work, and he should be done here.

He climbed the stairs to the second bedroom and methodically began emptying out every drawer. Most items were tossed in enormous, industrial-strength garbage bags he ordered in bulk, but every few minutes, he’d unearth something — a barely-worn quality leather belt, a well-kept hardcover book — that could enjoy a second life somewhere else.

Those items were carefully packed into his cardboard Goodwill box.

This was so different from the other job currently filling up his planner. Mike Carlson had also left only two children, Patricia and Emily, but they agreed on absolutely nothing.

Patricia was emotional and sentimental and felt like every item her parents had ever purchased should be preserved for eternity. But she lived in a small apartment down in Boca and had no room for any of it. So she wanted it all shipped to Emily.

Emily, who owned a sprawling ranch in Nebraska, had no interest in anything her parents had owned.

“Look,” she’d told Naftali yesterday, as he tried to broker peace for the sixth time, “my parents were good people and all —” he braced himself for the “but,” for the pain and recriminations he knew were about to emerge, “— but they never really got me, you know what I mean?

“I married Bob, we moved far, far away, made a good life for ourselves.

“I’m sorry Dad’s gone, although he had a good run of it, he was 89 you know, and now it’s time to move on. Toss everything.

“I don’t want no mementos,” her voice dripped scorn as she used her sister’s favorite word, “over and out is what I say.”

He was going to call Patricia today and give her his ultimatum: Either she and her sister come to an agreement, or he’d have to let go of the job, and she’d lose her deposit. He hated putting his foot down, but he also couldn’t keep blocking off time for a job with no clear marching orders.

But he didn’t have to do that just yet. Right now, he could enjoy the sense of peace and order he got every time he emptied out a home that no longer had an owner.