One day in her life, Cora Lynn decided to stop being the custodian of other peoples' memories. She put down the tiny bronze replica of the Golden Gate Bridge that had arrived in the morning mail and looked around her small, crowded, but immaculately clean Beacon Hill house. She could see no evidence that she had ever had any life of her own. Instead, what she saw were souvenirs, brought to her by well-meaning relatives, of their adventures.

It wasn't meant to be this way, Cora thought to herself, walking through her home. She picked up an ivory elephant from the antique curio cabinet in the living room. The elephant had come from her next youngest brother, Barney's, first trip abroad, to India, in 1958.

Cora was supposed to have been graduating college at that time and getting ready for her own world tour. Instead was still living in their parents' home, taking care of her younger siblings. Mother's arthritis wouldn't allow her to do much cleaning or cooking, and father was far too busy to learn such tasks, and so it had come to young Cora to put off her own future to help the family. That's what an oldest daughter is for, Cora's mother had often reminded her.

By the time Cora's brothers and sisters were all able to care for themselves, she had given up on ever making it to college and found an escape from the house in the form of a marriage proposal. Henry had been a classmate of Barney's and, although two years Cora's junior, saw an inner beauty in Cora that everybody else had missed. He told her so often.

Cora left her parents' house and moved into Henry's without so much as a Niagara Falls honeymoon. Instead, they had driven down to Rhode Island where Henry had some business dealings.

Cora, remembering that trip, walked back to the kitchen and began rummaging through the drawers. She found the ancient bottle opener Henry had bought at the Narragansett brewery. "Hi, Neighbor! Have a 'Gansett," it said; their one souvenir from their one trip together.

That's it! Cora thought. She brought the bottle opener back out to the curio cabinet and cleared the top shelf, placing Henry's prized memento in the center. Digging in the front closet she found an old hat box and placed the other objects from the curio into it - the ivory elephant, a pair of white and blue Delft salt and pepper shakers shaped like Dutch wooden shoes, a miniature Japanese Kimono spread over the bottom shelf - all gifts from her brothers' and sisters' travels overseas.

Just when Cora and Henry had started to build up enough of a nest egg to raise a family and do some travelling themselves, Henry had gotten ill. No children, and certainly no vacations, were in store for them. Cora became the caretaker once again. After her siblings had settled down, the tradition of gathering foreign objects was passed on to another generation. All during Henry's long decline they'd be visited by nieces and nephews, and each would bring gifts and photographs from their travels.

First one hat box, then another, and then several shoe boxes were filled with items from her cabinets, fireplace mantle, table tops, and shelves, all from locations across the country and the world that she had only dreamed of visiting. Already in the closet was a Jackalope, sent by their nephew, Stan, from his hitchhiking trip across Montana. Henry had loved the ugly thing, but Cora had removed it from the hallway wall only weeks after Henry's death. Cora now wrapped the Jackalope in a plastic shopping bag and moved it to the garage with several of the boxes.

Cora packed up her international showcase of tourist ware, gathered by others. As she packed, she swore to refill her house with her own memories, yet to be created. Boxes filled and she thought about where she might go. Perhaps she should start with a cruise down the East Coast, then on to the Caribbean, maybe even sailing through the Panama Canal and up the West Coast to Alaska! Once she'd surveyed this continent, then there'd be time to venture beyond. She might even sell this house and settle in Australia; that would show her family what Cora was really made of.

Nearly to dinnertime, Cora packed the final item: the tiny bronze Golden Gate Bridge, sent by her grandniece, Polly. The first item to be received from a third generation of her far-flung family. Cora would have no more of that. She packed the bridge back into the package it had arrived in. Looking at the now complete stack of boxes, she imagined it as a Tower of Babel in reverse; from the far corners of the world to her garage.

Cora decided to begin her adventures at that very moment. She headed down the street to the Chinese restaurant her neighbors were always raving about. She silently ate her Almond Chicken with Special Fried Rice and Won Ton Soup, and tried to imagine what exotic dishes awaited her elsewhere.

Once the table was cleared, and the check presented, she opened her fortune cookie delicately, as if cracking an egg; taking care not to have crumbs shower the table or her lap. Putting the halves of the cookie aside, she smoothed out the fortune on the clean table cloth and read the enclosed message:

THE TREASURES YOUR FAMILY BRINGS YOU ARE LOVE

Cora looked from the fortune to a family enjoying their meal at the large corner table. She paused a moment, opened her pocketbook, and pulled several crisp dollar bills from her wallet, replacing them with the fortune.

Cora Lynn walked directly home to unpack her boxes, and think about her future.