Chapter 1: Discovery

Mom passed away several months ago, and I had started the slow, grim process of clearing out the house. It had been a task I’d been putting off, the kind you don’t want to face but eventually have to. Once her estate was settled, I figured I’d turn the place into a rental. The house was still in great shape—mostly—and it seemed like it might be a good fit for a new teacher. That’s what I told myself, anyway, as I sifted through the remnants of my mother’s life, the piles of things she’d kept and tucked away in corners.

The furniture was long gone, sold off at an auction house to the highest bidder. It fetched a decent price—more than I’d expected. Mom had an eye for quality, and the people who’d bought her things were willing to pay for it, like vultures circling a carcass, never bothering to notice how the bones were beginning to creak under the weight of time. The pieces had been beautiful, sure, but they carried with them something else—something that felt like a memory too heavy to shake.

All that was left to clean out was the attic, and it hung over me like a storm cloud, thick and waiting. I had been dreading it for weeks, putting it off with the kind of quiet dread that grows in the pit of your stomach. Mom had never been one to throw anything away when it came to memories. It was as if she believed everything—every little scrap—held some weight, some significance, even if it didn’t. There were thirty years’ worth of her teaching mementos up there, all crammed into cardboard boxes and yellowing file folders, and I had saved that task for last.

The city had dropped off a six-cubic-foot dumpster, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it would even be enough. It seemed absurd, really, to think that a plastic box on wheels could swallow up thirty years of a woman’s life. But I had no choice. All that clutter, all those remnants of a life well-lived—or maybe a life lived too hard—would soon be gone. I only hoped that what I found up there wouldn’t be something I’d regret tossing out later.

Into the dumpster went thirty years’ worth of scrapbooks, brittle with age, and class pictures of long-forgotten students, their faces frozen in time like ghosts trapped in a frame. There were clay-sculpture Christmas gifts, too—each one carefully wrapped and labeled with the name of the student who had given it to her. I couldn’t help but picture those little hands, now grown and gone, crafting something they thought would last forever.

I felt the guilt crawl up my spine, a slow, insidious thing that threatened to choke me. Throwing it all away felt wrong, like I was casting off pieces of her, of who she was. But what was I supposed to do with it all? I had no use for it, and keeping it seemed like a cruel act of preservation, a hollow gesture to a woman who would never come back to care about it. Mom wasn’t here anymore to dust off the memories, to breathe life into them with stories and laughter. All that was left was the empty space she’d left behind, and the things she’d hoarded like the past itself was something you could cling to.

Mom had just turned 90, still living independently in the old house that seemed to creak under the weight of its own memories. She showed no signs of dementia, no wandering thoughts or forgotten names—just a sharp mind that kept working like a well-oiled machine. She managed her affairs with ease, each decision made with the quiet confidence of someone who had seen it all before. I checked in on her once a week, either by phone or in person, and she always seemed to be doing remarkably well for her age—better than I expected, anyway.

But sometimes, in the silence of her house, I could almost hear the things she wasn’t saying. The way her eyes would flicker just slightly, a brief hesitation before answering a question, as though she were waiting for something, or perhaps something was waiting for her. It was the kind of thing you couldn’t quite place, like a shadow you swear moves just out of the corner of your eye. Nothing to worry about, of course. At least, that’s what I told myself.

Then COVID struck. It was a whisper at first, something distant, something that felt like it could never really touch us. But it did, and within two days, she was gone.

There was no warning, no slow decline. One day, she was fine—strong, independent, like always—and the next, she was fading, slipping through my fingers like water in a storm. The disease moved fast, brutal, and silent, like a shadow creeping across a room before you even noticed it was there.

Two days. That was all it took. Two days for everything to change. Just enough time for the world to turn upside down, and for me to realize how little I truly understood the fragile, fleeting nature of life.

As her only heir, I inherited everything she left behind, every last trinket, every dust-covered box. It felt less like a gift and more like a sentence. And now, here I was, alone in the attic, sorting through the remnants of her life—deciding what to keep, and what to let go.

There was something suffocating about it, the air thick with dust and memories that had no business being so alive. Each item felt like it was waiting, like it had a story to tell, a secret to whisper—if only I’d listen long enough. But the truth was, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what they had to say. Some things are better left buried, tucked away in corners where they can’t reach you.

But I couldn’t avoid it. Not now. So, I picked through it all—the crumbling photo albums, the old books with pages yellowed by time—and I tried to decide. What parts of her life would stay with me, and which parts would be tossed into the dark void of the dumpster below, forgotten forever?

Mom’s name was Louisa Tschudi, and she took great pride in her Swiss ancestry—pride that ran deep, like a river carving through rock. Her great-grandfather, Frederick Tschudi, had come to America in 1891, a young man with a sharp mind and even sharper hands. He quickly made a name for himself as a leading surgeon, his skills recognized before his accent had even fully settled. After a brief stint in New York City, he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he built a life that would shape the very foundation of the medical world.

Frederick’s success wasn’t just measured in the number of lives he saved, but in the techniques he developed—surgical methods still taught to residents today, their names etched in textbooks and whispered in operating rooms. A man who had reached the pinnacle of his field, but who, in the end, was as mortal as the rest of us. He passed away in 1921, leaving behind a legacy as sharp and indelible as the scalpel he wielded.

And yet, as I stood there, holding fragments of her life in my hands, I couldn’t help but wonder what had become of that legacy—what had been left behind in the dust of the attic. Was it something to be proud of, or something that should have been buried with him?

Her grandfather and father had followed in Frederick Tschudi’s footsteps, each one carving out his own place in the world of surgery. Godfrey Tschudi and George Tschudi were well-known figures in the Cincinnati area, their names respected and whispered in the halls of local hospitals. They had their own thriving practices, each building on the legacy of the man who had started it all. George was my grandfather, and I remember—though it feels more like a dream now—exploring his office as a young boy, leafing through his medical books with the same curious fingers that were always getting into trouble. I’d run my hands over the leather bindings, flip through pages filled with images of blood and bone, and sometimes I’d play in his examination rooms, where the smell of antiseptic mixed with something older, something I couldn’t name.

More than once, I got into trouble for touching things I shouldn’t have. There were instruments that glinted in the dim light, sharp and cold, that I had no business handling. I don’t know why, but something about them always drew me in—like they were calling to me, beckoning me to explore deeper than I was meant to go. And every time, my grandfather would scold me gently, but there was always that hint of something else in his eyes. Something I couldn’t quite place, but it stayed with me.

My worst offense was taking apart his anatomical skeleton. It had always stood there in the corner of the room, its white bones gleaming in the dim light, an eerie figure that seemed almost alive. I’d been drawn to it, fascinated by how it felt to hold the bones in my hands, to unstring them like a puzzle meant to be solved. Slowly, methodically, I had pulled it apart—ribs, arms, legs—until there was nothing left but a pile of fragile bones scattered across the floor like a jumbled mess of broken promises.

Grandfather caught me mid-reassembly, kneeling there on the floor, fumbling with the skull. His face was hard, but not angry. He didn’t scold me—my grandfather wouldn’t allow that—but his eyes carried something darker, something unspoken. “It’s your responsibility now,” he said, his voice low, almost a whisper. “You made the mess. You fix it.”

I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t that. No punishment, no anger—just that quiet, intense stare. It wasn’t like he was giving me a choice. I spent hours trying to piece it together, the bones clicking and shifting in my hands as if they had a will of their own. It took several attempts—more than I care to remember—but eventually, I got it back together.

There was something unsettling about the skeleton once it was whole again. It felt like it was watching me, as if it knew what I had done. Or maybe, just maybe, it had always known.

To this day, I can name every bone in the human body and pinpoint its location with unsettling accuracy. It wasn’t just a lesson—it was something that settled deep into my mind, like a seed planted in dark soil, growing roots I couldn’t quite shake. Every bone, every joint, every curve and angle—it’s all still there, etched into me in ways I can’t fully explain. It was an invaluable learning experience, sure, but it came with a cost. Because sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can still feel the coldness of those bones in my hands, hear the soft, hollow click of them as they fit together. And I wonder if I’ve learned more than I was meant to.