Catalog of My Brother's Chairs

How it begins

Lot one was a chair nobody could sit on.

Lena wrote structurally unsound, then crossed it out.

Her brother had repaired the joints with such care that the damage could only be intentional. One leg was half an inch shorter than the others. A wedge lay underneath it, tied to the frame with green string.

There were forty-two more chairs behind it.

She had expected debts. Perhaps a second bicycle. Her brother's messages had become cheerful and vague in the last year, which in their family usually meant a bill was about to arrive.

Instead, a warehouse full of places.

Pascal stood beside the roller door with two coffees.

"Do you want them in order?"

"What order?"

He looked down the rows.

"Right."

Lena opened her cataloging tablet. Oak dining chair, approximately nineteen forty. Later repair. Modest value.

"That one isn't modest," Pascal said.

"It's a common design."

"I meant what it cost him."

She waited.

Pascal offered her the coffee with more milk.

On the seat was a brown envelope. No address. Inside lay a dinner invitation in her brother's handwriting.

Thursday. Seven. You don't have to bring anything.

She turned it over.

On the back, in smaller writing: If they say no, don't ask why.

"Who was this for?"

Pascal took too long to answer.

Lena counted the chairs again, because counting was something she could do without making a sound.

Forty-three.

Her brother had owned one saucepan and eaten standing at his kitchen counter. When she visited, he had claimed the sitting room was being painted.

The warehouse smelled of beeswax, wet concrete and old cigarette smoke. In the far corner, a small table held a packet of paper napkins.

Still sealed.

Lena deleted modest value.

Then she created a new field in the catalog.

Who was meant to sit here?