The Groceryboy's Name was Andy: a story in many parts.

Part Four.

The first few days were a sweaty mess of sorting. We didn't see many people, we worked through the day, tearing up useless bills and shredding others, dusting and appraising and packing up antiques and souvenirs from trips around the world.

During one of our short breaks, a wizened Croation woman appeared at our doorstep holding a giant bag of tomatoes.

"I've hear you are here and I bring fruits!" she declared.

"Yes!" I stammered. She shoved the bag into my hands with a sweet smile.

"Svetta!" My mother flung herself past me and enveloped the tiny lady in her arms.

I was getting used to this sort of thing. It was sort of like dreaming: complete non-sequiturs folded into our routine with a smooth, strangely comforting ease.

It turned out Svetta had been the cleaning lady for the Steinkamps for nearly 40 years. She'd grown these tomatoes in her backyard.

After she'd heartily embraced both my Mother and I several times, she launched into an unintelligible report on life. I could have sworn she was not speaking English, but Mother appeared to be tracking, at least her 'ahs' and 'hmms' all seemed to fall in all the right places. After Svetta left we sat down in the middle of the living room floor, cross-legged, both intrigued by the giant scarlet goodness of these 'fruits'. I picked one up and bit it like an apple. An explosion of gorgeous salty splendor filled my mouth. The word "tomato" failed epically: these were, I swear on my life, the sweetest, plumpest, saltiest...absolutely the Platonic ideal of the tomato. We couldn't even speak at first, the juice dripping down onto our bare legs, we communed together, silently, marveling at their beauty.

The very fact that the tomatoes were a high point, a source of endless wonder, exposed the sudden simplicity our lives had taken on.

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The piles deflated slowly. We worked with great care, examining each expired coupon and postcard. Without ever discussing it, we we haunted by the same curiosity: The Great Depression impressed incredible parsimony into my grandfather. He saved everything; often in strange places. He'd lost much of his reason. These facts combined seemed to point to the possibility that Something of Infinite Value had been buried in the mess.

The only verbal acknowledgment of this theory came in occasional joking, 'you sure that's not the family fortune in there...you double checked?' as we pitched out the bulging Hefty bags at the end of each evening. I knew it was nearly impossible, probably completely false. Still the idea appealed to me.