Apteekkarinkaapit

Inside: a folded piece of tracing paper, brittle as a dead leaf. On it, a crayon drawing of two stick figures holding hands under a crooked yellow sun. Below, in a child’s scrawl: “Isä ja minä. Ennen hän unohti.” (“Dad and me. Before he forgot.”)

Drawer 18 belonged to a man who had been a lighthouse keeper. Inside: a polished piece of sea glass, a letter in Swedish about a storm, and a broken compass that always pointed to his hometown of Vaasa. “Oskar. The sea took everything but the memory.” apteekkarinkaapit

Inside: a single, desiccated violet, pressed between two watch crystals. The label holder read: “Hilja’s Last Hope. June 12, 1944.” Inside: a folded piece of tracing paper, brittle

Another. Drawer twelve. A child’s milk tooth wrapped in a receipt from a long-gone bakery. “Leo, age 5. He believed in fairies here.” Ennen hän unohti