The container was full of household furniture, although the auction list promised machine parts. Suri stopped the sale and called the number written inside a wardrobe door. A man answered, then went quiet when she described the brass handle.
His sister had shipped their mother's belongings before leaving Ashport. She died abroad, and the family lost track of the shipment. Their paperwork gave a container number differing by one digit. Suri expected a typing error until she found the earlier number painted beneath the current one.
The container itself had been renumbered after repair. A transfer sheet carried both identifiers, but the auction inventory used only the new one. The family had been searching for an object that still existed under another name.
The man came with the old inventory, crossing off each item as it emerged. At the wardrobe, he stopped marking the page. Inside the door, below the telephone number, his mother had written the children's heights. Suri left that item until last so he could stand beside it without forklifts moving around him.