The scent of bleach and stale institutional food clung to the air in Room 314 of the Oakwood Senior Center. Mom, or Evelyn, sat in a plush armchair that looked painfully out of place next to the sterile hospital bed. Opposite her stood Michael and David—her two grown sons. They were here on a purely logistical mission: retrieving the last of their childhood items from the house they had just sold. The sale had been swift and merciless. Evelyn had lived in that house for fifty years, pouring her