WHITE ELEPHANTS

Every May, as part of her big spring cleaning, Emily donated her castoffs to the church rummage sale. Over the years she’d systematically emptied the basement and the garage, taking a victorious general’s pleasure in the newly recouped space. The tables at Calvary had been blessed with an abundance of junk she no longer had any use for and couldn’t fob off on the children: old dishes and Christmas lights and board games and steamer trunks and cameras and lamps and so many folding chairs. There were sentimental exceptions, of course—her golf clubs, Henry’s jigsaw, Margaret’s typewriter—though as she grew older, she found it easier to part with the tokens of their past. She was done storing things in the hope that someone would love them as much as she did.

She spent a morning in the corner behind the furnace, culling the most obvious pieces. This year’s crop included a rusty cooler they’d used for picnics and backyard parties, a box fan that didn’t fit Kenneth’s window and two ugly beige card tables she’d bought for her long-defunct bridge club. It was a shame, the card tables were in perfect shape, but no, they had to go.

As tough as it was giving away merchandise she’d paid good money for, presents were even harder. She’d keep the bread maker for another year, though she had no intention of using it, and the Crock-Pot, and the redenameled skillet like her mother’s that Margaret had found at the flea market. No one would know if she donated them, and yet, out of simple etiquette, Emily felt obligated. It was doubly frustrating, leaving these unwanted objects to gather dust when she was getting rid of things that actually meant something to her.

Hardest of all were those remnants of Henry’s she should have thrown out years ago, like the matching luggage they’d bought for their trip to England—four hardshell American Tourister suitcases the dark purple of raw liver, each with its own gold monogram and combination lock. Tall and narrow, they hailed from the era before wheels, and had a tendency to topple over at the merest touch. Emily couldn’t remember the last time they’d used them, probably a Christmas visit to Boston when the grandchildren were little. She had a vague memory of filling one with presents. In any case, at least ten years. Since Henry died she hadn’t used hers, as if breaking the set would be bad luck.

She tipped one to the light to read the initials—Henry’s—and saw him in his trenchcoat, hatless, on some Midlands rail platform, the wind rearranging his thin hair. Rather than bother with a car, they’d taken trains, vetting the schedules like astrologers, working their way from London up through the Lake Country and the empty moors to Edinburgh. It was supposed to be romantic, the dining cars and long vistas, but each time they boarded, Henry had to navigate the treacherous metal steps and busy aisles with the two larger suitcases while Emily struggled behind with the smaller ones. When they reached their cramped compartment (in the movies they were much more spacious), he had to heft each bag onto an overhead rack, prompting muttering about how he was certainly getting his exercise this trip and then testy exchanges over how many clothes they really needed to bring and why they’d chosen to come in the fall. By their second week the ritual had become so unpleasant that neither of them commented on it, just lugged the bags on and off as if this were their sentence. And then, when they’d unpacked at the next inn and found their way around the quaint town, they softened. They hadn’t come all this way to argue. Henry was accommodating; she was sorry. A nice rare lamb chop and a bottle of claret did wonders for their morale, a sinful dessert with clotted cream and then a tawny port, perhaps a nightcap of Drambuie for Bonny Prince Charlie, and arm in arm they weaved their way back through the ancient streets to their nest of a room and fell into bed, all the rigors of travel forgotten, all the joys theirs for the taking.

With an old dishcloth she wiped the handle free of cobwebs, then lifted the suitcase to test its weight—surprisingly light. She’d performed the same experiment last year, and the year before, the strength of her memories weakening her resolve, when, really, there was no compelling reason to hang on to them. Her days as a world traveler were over. That was fine. She wasn’t the Elderhostel type, traipsing around the Holy Land with a visor and a canteen. If only they weren’t monogrammed. She wished there were a way to remove their initials. She was tempted to mask them with electrical tape, a kind of blindfold, as if it would be easier to send them off anonymously.

These second thoughts stopped her, made her straighten up, take a breath and reconsider the whole set, the four of them huddled in the dankness like a family. They were more than forty years old, she’d never use them again and the children had their own bags. So why did she feel like an executioner?

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping down the sides. “Maybe your new owners will take you somewhere nice.”

The decision sapped her as if she’d run a mile. She didn’t bother with the far corner, just carried up what she had, one piece at a time. Rufus, who was afraid of the basement stairs, waited for her at the top, and then, as she came back from filling the Subaru, at the back door.

“Yes,” she said, “thank you for helping. No, Boobus, you don’t really want to come. I promise, it’s going to be no fun. Go lie down. I’ll be back in an hour.” She kissed the top of his head and sent him off, listening for the clatter of his nails on the stairs. “Go on up,” she said, and he did.

One of the pleasures of donating to the rummage sale was seeing what other people had dredged up before the public had a crack at it—an empty privilege, really, since she was done accumulating things. Part of it was simple curiosity, part a confirmation. Confronting the sheer bounty of junk made her grateful she’d already gotten rid of hers. Spread about the refectory like the treasure of an archaeological dig was the detritus of a civilization dedicated, it seemed, to leisure: lawn chairs and fondue sets and exercise bikes, children’s skis and wooden tennis racquets still in their wing-nut-studded presses, Herb Alpert records and forgotten bestsellers, outmoded tape players and TVs and VCRs. So much of life, one might assume from this display, was a waste of time, but among the folding tables she recognized meaningful episodes from her own—the humidifier she set on a chair beside Margaret’s and Kenneth’s beds when they had bronchitis, or at least a reasonable facsimile; a Coleman stove like the one Henry brewed their morning coffee over on their camping trips before they had children; dry-cleaned sleeping bags, chipped punch bowls, space-age sunlamps. It was somehow comforting to encounter the same juice pitcher from the seventies decorated with a giant orange slice, as if, like one of Plato’s ideal forms, it could never vanish completely. Despite herself, she pinched the little price tag on its string and then had to resist the bargain by walking away.

There were several coolers to choose from, including a newer-looking one with drink holders sunk into the lid, and several sets of expensive luggage. She eyed them as if they were competitors. The volunteers from the Altar Guild hadn’t put hers out yet, and rather than wait and see what they were asking for them, she said her goodbyes and headed home, telling herself it didn’t matter.

She told herself the same thing the next Sunday when they didn’t sell and the youth group chucked them into a dumpster with all the other garbage to be hauled away and buried in some landfill. She’d given them freely, glad to have them out of the house. What happened to them after that was beyond her control, though, imagining their bags crushed beneath the ever-deepening layers, she understood it was all her fault, and now when she ventured down to the basement for a cardboard box or a screwdriver from Henry’s workbench, instead of stopping and admiring the open space she’d created, she was reminded of how much she’d lost, and scurried back upstairs.