“We can totally make it look like an accident.” Kristen grinned and took a sip of wine.
Hadley threw a pillow at her sister, who ducked just in time. It hit a vase, which toppled over and rolled across the table and onto the floor, and then split into five jagged pieces.
Kristen leaped from the couch and knelt on the floor. “I’m sorry, Hadley.”
Hadley remained in her chair. “It doesn’t matter. I got it at a yard sale. Plus, I threw the pillow, not you.” She burst into tears.
Kristen was at her side in a second. She wrapped her arms around Hadley, who collapsed against her. “It’s okay,” Kristen said. “We’ll get through the next couple of days together.”
“What about the stupid house?” asked Hadley. “We’re going to have to fix it up if we’re going to sell it.”
“It needs a lot of work,” Grant said. “Paint inside and out. New carpet and flooring. Yard work.”
“How much will all that cost?” Hadley asked.
“Whatever it is, I can help. You can pay me back after you sell the house,” he said. “I suggest we get one of those big dumpsters and hire some guys to toss the contents of that hell hole into it.”
“We have to sort through things,” said Hadley. “There might be photographs or something that we want to keep. In case we have kids.”
“I can stay a few days,” said Grant. “Between the three of us, we can get it done.”
“So we can show these fictional kids what?” Kristen asked as if Grant hadn’t spoken. “Pictures of him? Grant has a scar on his shoulder that will tell them all they need to know about him.”
Grant crossed back to the couch and picked up his wine. “You remember that, Kris? You were only six or seven.”
“Yeah, I remember.” She spoke softly, staring into her lap. “I wish I didn’t.”
“Well, it’s all fine, now, Kris. I’m fine. I don’t want you upset,” he said. “We don’t need to talk about it.”
“We should talk about it,” Hadley said. “We should talk about everything.”
The doorbell rang. “Look at that. Saved by the pizza,” Kristen said.
**
No one spoke much as they devoured the canadian bacon and mushroom pizza.
“We should’ve gotten two of these.” Kristen laughed as she grabbed the last piece. “This reminds me of when were kids. We never seemed to have enough.”
“It took me years to not gobble my food,” Grant said. “You girls were fast.”
“He used to call me a quick little piggy,” Hadley said.
Grant stacked the empty pizza box and paper plates. “Was there ever a time when he wasn’t a dick?”
Kristen finished off her piece of pizza and wiped her hands with a napkin. “He was worse to you than us.” She put her bare feet up on the coffee table and crossed her arms over her chest.
“I worried he might start in on you two after I left. I had no choice but to abandon you. Mom told me I had to leave. She said she couldn’t protect me.”
“As if she had ever protected you,” said Kristen.
Grant chuckled and wrapped his arm around Kristen’s neck. “She wasn’t feisty like you.”
“That’s one way to say it.” Kristen rested her cheek on his shoulder.
She’s still so sad. He would give anything to suck that sadness out of her and take it on himself.
“He never hit us,” said Hadley. “But he had other ways of making us miserable.”
“It wasn’t like with Grant, though,” Kristen said. “It was different with him.”
“The difference is—he hated me, and he loved you two,” Grant said.
“You can’t hate your own children,” Hadley said. “Can you?”
“Well, Mom and Dad certainly did their thing to blow up that theory,” said Kristen. “No better way to say fuck you than to hang yourself.”
“Kris, it wasn’t about us,” Hadley said. “Mom was depressed for years. She needed help.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Kristen ducked out of Grant’s embrace and picked up her empty wine glass. “She chose to leave us.” She poured more wine for herself and Hadley.
“She loved us,” Hadley said. “I know she did.”
“Then she should’ve gotten help.” Kristen yanked at her long hair, pulling it over one shoulder.
“Better living through chemicals?” Grant asked.
“It’s actually simple if you think about it in clinical terms,” Hadley said. “Dad was a narcissist. Mom was depressed and needed help. Instead of getting that help, she let him push her around until she couldn’t stand it anymore.”
“I needed her, and she left me,” Kristen said. “And I’m pissed.”
Hadley stared at her. Grant glanced between them. This was a new Kristen. In the past, when Grant or Hadley had brought up their parents, she would either leave the room or change the subject. She was the light-hearted one of the three, or so he’d thought. Hadley, the caretaker. Grant, the jokester. Kristen, the sweetheart. They’d had roles and rules. What was happening here?
“I was a teenager. A girl needs her mother. Instead, she left me alone with a man utterly incapable of caring for me emotionally, or otherwise for that matter. He just sat in that stupid chair anytime he wasn’t at work or at the bar.” Kristen swirled the wine around in her glass.
Hadley’s eyes had filled with tears. “I have a lot of guilt.”
“About what?” Grant asked softly. Let me tell you about guilt.
“I should’ve left college and come home to look after you,” Hadley said to Kristen.
“He wouldn’t have let you come home,” Grant said. “You know his rules about moving out.” Once they turned eighteen, they were expected to leave and be on their own, regardless of college. “I should’ve tried to take you back to L.A. I was done with law school. You could’ve lived with me.”
“He wouldn’t have let me go,” Kristen said. “Especially with you.”
“I should’ve gotten Mom away from Dad,” Grant said. “Sometimes I wonder…you know, if I hadn’t left and never come back, if things would’ve turned out differently.”
“Well, aren’t we the fine pair. Guilty of all the world’s problems.” Hadley hiccupped.
Kristen giggled. “No more wine for you.”
“You have any scotch?” Grant asked.
Hadley pointed at the hutch in the dining area. “It’s in there. Help yourself.”
He shuffled over to the cabinet and grabbed a glass and the scotch.
“How are you doing, Grant?” asked Kristen. “This has been a rough week for you.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Grant poured himself a large scotch and plopped on the couch next to his sisters.
They all laughed.
“In all seriousness, I have something to share with you both,” he said. “Something that will make you proud of my growth as a man.”
Kristen poked him in the chest. “Oh for God’s sake, you sound like Hadley.”
Hadley’s eyes twinkled. “He’s been talking to a very good therapist.”
“It’s about a girl,” he said. “The greatest girl in the world.”
“Do tell. And don’t leave out any of the details,” Kristen said.
**
The next morning, Grant and his sisters arrived at the house with boxes and packing tape. The giant dumpster had already been delivered. It sat in the driveway like a big, green monster waiting to gobble a family’s memories. Do not think today. Just do. Get it done.
The siblings divided duties. Grant took the bedrooms, Hadley the kitchen, and Kristen the living room and bathrooms. They agreed to save photos and any important papers. The girls would decide between them if there were any keepsakes they wanted. Everything else would go.
The morning passed quickly. By lunchtime Grant had both bedrooms emptied of everything but the large furniture, which would wait for the green monster’s pickup team.
Grant was ruthless
while deciding what should be salvaged. So far, the only items that had made the list were a small box at the back of the bureau that contained his father’s military medals and the simple gold wedding band that had belonged to his mother.
Around noon they ate sandwiches from the local deli and sat outside in the sunshine. Perhaps talked out from last night, they didn’t say much, the day’s work heavy on their hearts. After their short break, they went back to work. Grant’s last task was his father’s clothes closet, which he’d procrastinated until the end. Putting it off like a coward.
He stood before the shutter style doors of the closet. I don’t want to do this. Get it over with. Grant pushed open the doors; they creaked as if tired from an endless journey. Long empty of his mother’s clothes, it was surprising how little his father had. There were a few jackets and an assortment of pants and shirts. Boots and shoes on the floor. Just a closet of stuff. Don’t think about it. Just pack it up and get it out.
But no, it was not just a closet and just some stuff. This was an intimate glimpse into his father’s life. His scent lingered in the fabric. His essence remained in the bare patches of sleeves and frayed collars. Damn, he was the wrong person for this job. Once an enemy, now a stranger. This last act should be performed by someone who would weep over the objects inside, not cringe from the memories.
I’m all you’ve got, Dad. Joke’s on you.
None of the clothes were worthy of donation. Most were ratty and faded, other than a black raincoat. Dust covered the shoulders, but a price tag was attached to the inside label. A gift from Hadley, most likely. Discarded. She could not give up on him, no matter how many times he’d hurt her.
He finished packing all the clothes into plastic bags. The closet was empty, other than a shelf up above. As tall as he was, it was too dark to see if there was anything stored there. He grabbed a step stool and a flashlight from the other room. Standing on the bottom rung of the stool, he pointed the light into the dank space. Empty, other than a few cobwebs. His mother had kept her scarves and hats and other accessories on this shelf. It was her special space. She’d always kept it orderly with hat boxes made of feminine prints. One day she’d fetched a clutch purse for Hadley from this shelf.
I carried this the day I married your father. She had pressed it into Hadley’s hand. Have fun tonight, honey. She’d carried that purse when she had been hopeful about life, before she was imprisoned with the black demons in her mind.
When she died, his father must have cleared the shelf and not bothered to put anything else up there. The old man could have written a book on minimalism, for Christ’s sake. What had happened to her precious things? Thrown out by someone who did not breathe in her scent or weep from holding memories in his or her hand. Decaying in a landfill, as if the objects and their owner never mattered at all.
Bricks lined the wall behind the shelf. Grant was about to jump from the stool when he noticed one of the bricks appeared loose. He tugged. The brick came out easily. He shone his light inside the small space. A miniature key nestled there, like a princess asleep in a brick castle. He picked it up, turning it over in the palm of his hand. Nothing special. It was the size for a jewelry box or one of those tiny metal padlocks.
It’s Mom’s. How he knew this, he couldn’t say, but instinct told him it was true. She’d hidden it there, behind her special objects. But why? And where was the chest or box to which the key fit?
He stuck the key in his pocket. When he was done hauling all of his father’s crap to the yard, he would tell his sisters what he had found. Perhaps they would know of a secret box somewhere. Or, maybe they would have found one today.
First, though, he wanted to haul the mattress and box spring out to the dumpster. He yanked the top mattress off the bed and dragged it out of the bedroom and down the hallway. As he went through the living room, Kristen called out to him to stop showing off. He grinned at her and made a grunting sound as he headed out the front door. He hurled the mattress into the dumpster, pausing for a moment to take in a breath of fresh air. The afternoon breezes brought the briny scent of the ocean, and he inhaled it like a beloved memory before returning for the box spring.
It was ripped and torn, the translucent fabric hanging in shreds between the boards. What was that? There was something lodged in the corner of the box spring. He knelt to get a closer look. It was a silver box, wedged between the boards on his mother’s side of the bed.
His heart raced. Could this be it? Was this the answer to the mysterious key? About the size of a boot box, the chest was made of steel—probably impenetrable without a key. He tugged until it came loose from the boards, the force of which knocked him onto the floor. He grabbed the key from his pocket. It fit. The lid popped open.
Scrawled in his mother’s handwriting on the inside of the lid: Memories.
Sitting on the floor, he looked inside. The contents were neatly organized and consisted of a group of photographs, various papers, and a collection of letters. He picked up a photograph first. It was his mother and a man standing under a flowering cherry tree. The man had his arm around her waist as she stared up at him with obvious adoration. In the other hand, he held a cowboy hat. His mother wore a blue dress with white polka dots. She was slim and beautiful, with long blond hair flowing down her back. She looks like Kristen. Grant flipped the photograph over. Mike and me. 1983. River Valley.
River Valley? She’d been to River Valley? Well, what was weird about that? It wasn’t that far away. There was a mountain range between the coast and River Valley, so the highway dipped into California before heading north along the Smith River. She could have been there many times. But Mike? Who was Mike?
The second photograph was of the same scene except his mother and the man were kissing. It seemed likely the photographer had snapped that one right after the first one. His mother obviously wasn’t good at posing. He looked on the back of this photograph. Mike and me. On his farm in River Valley. 1983.
He dropped the photographs back into the box. His fingers were sweating. Did fingers sweat?
1983? Grant was born in October of 1984. Cherry trees bloomed in early spring. His parents were married in the summer of 1983. How was it possible she was standing under the cherry tree with this Mike guy that spring? It took nine months to make a baby. What’s the math? Nine months backward? He counted them on his fingers. October, September, August…March. He was conceived in March. Why had it never occurred to him before? She was pregnant when she got married. Cherry trees bloom in April. She was with Mike in April.
His hands shook as he grabbed the stack of letters. There were six in total. The return address said: Mike Huller, 554 Old Sawyer Road, River Valley, Oregon 97621.
Who the hell was Mike Huller?
He opened the first one.
February 15, 1983
Dear Lily,
It’s been an hour since you left. I can still smell your perfume. I hated to see your car disappear down my driveway.
I’ve asked my mother to take the boys next weekend. This will give us two days together. I know you’re right that it’s too soon for me to introduce you to them. I look forward to the day my divorce is final, and I can move on with my life, which I hope will include you. The boys have missed their mother. That’s just the hard truth. The way she left didn’t help. An inept man raising two little boys without their mother leaves a lot to be desired. Half the time I don’t know which end is up.
Not to sound like a sap, but I’ll count the minutes until I see you again.
Don’t forget to bring your photograph.
Mike
The second letter.
February 25, 1983
Dear Lily,
I can’t tell you enough what a lift your visits bring. The weeks seem long. I’m thankful for my mother. Without her, these boys would be a mess.
Today, when I went to pick up the boys, I confessed to my mother that I’d met someone. I had to tell her why I needed another weekend without the
boys. She was surprised how we met—she agrees that it was an incredible stroke of luck that we both happened to be there at the exact same time. She said to be careful and to keep our relationship a secret until the divorce is final. She worries Wendy could use it to get money out of me in the settlement, or worse, a piece of the business. Our sawmill’s been in our family for generations. To give Wendy a piece of it would just about kill my dad. But my lawyer assures me that because she abandoned two little boys, the court won’t look too kindly on her.
I’m sorry your mother was like that when you told her about me. She’s of a different generation. Until my divorce is final, I reckon she’ll continue to regard me as a married man. Someday I’ll win her over.
I heard Zac crying himself to sleep tonight. He misses his mama. I feel like a horse with a lame foot.
Counting the days until the weekend.
Love,
Mike
March 6, 1983
Dear Lily,
It’s the middle of the night and the house is quiet, other than the sound of crickets outside my window. I can’t sleep. I’m thinking about you. When you said you loved me this afternoon, you took me by surprise. I could kick myself because I should have said it back to you. I love you, Lily. It’s been fast, but I’m sure. When you know, you know.
See you in a few days.
Love,
Mike
Grant read the last letter in the stack.
March 25, 1983
Dear Lily,
I know we agreed to sever contact, but I wanted to write to once again say how sorry I am. As I said a thousand times this afternoon, I didn’t expect that Wendy would come back. I guess being away from her children for six months taught her how much she wanted them. She knows what she’s done to the boys and wants to make up for it. However, given they’re only two and four, I doubt they’ll remember this time. We still have a chance to put this family back together. As much as I love you, I must do what’s right for my boys.
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