My name is Dom Anders.

This winter I called my estranged brother for the first time in a year to tell him

our Aunt Nell had died.

I really just had one question for him which was, what do you want to do with her house?

Another one of us had seen Aunt Nell for 35 years.

We spent a combined total of five weeks there over two summers back when we were ten.

She was our last surviving relative and when she died we inherited her place in Permanent

Pennsylvania.

According to a neighbor who called me when she died it was pretty much a disaster had

been for years.

So another one of us really wanted to deal with cleaning it out, making repairs, listing

it.

At one point during the conversation with my brother I said, you know, Gary, can you

imagine the mess, that nasty old basement and the attic.

And Gary said, well, there was no attic but I guess the basement would be horrible.

I corrected him on this.

I said, you don't remember the attic?

It was one of those where the door was built into the ceiling and there was a long stick

with a hook he had to catch to latch with.

And he said, testily, you're completely wrong.

You're thinking of some other house, your memory is bad.

And he and I actually got into an argument about it.

...