The dollar value for my house, on the seller’s agreement, was more than I’d expected for a two-bedroom house in a small town, but the realtor, Rose, had explained that asking prices were just that—asking. We’d lower the price if the house didn’t sell in two months. Glancing out the front window, I saw Rose pounding a For Sale sign into the front lawn. The woman came prepared.
Two months. It would be mid-December by then. I hoped to be in a new home before Christmas, to put this house and all that had happened in it behind me. Like Maggie had said, I needed to stop wrestling with the past.
I watched Rose drive off, then turned to survey my house.
But maybe I also needed to face it. I climbed the stairs and went into the guest room, which over the years had become a catchall space in the house. It was a storeroom of memories.
I opened the closet and shuffled through the junk at the bottom. Dust danced around my head and into my nose as I rummaged through the room, uncovering collections of discarded clothing, random pieces of paper, bizarre collections of mateless shoes, furniture polish, a broken tennis racket, and ice skates I hadn’t worn since high school.
I pushed through all these things, tossing them out of the closet without much more than a glance. It was almost as if I was looking for something. As if some part of me knew what I’d find.
In the back of the closet, I spied it—a large shoe box that had once contained a pair of men’s winter boots, size twelve. I picked it up and held it at arm’s length, as if it might contain a poisonous snake.
Just look inside.
I pulled off the lid. A bright red sweater had been stuffed into the box, and it swelled up, pushing its way out. I pulled it out and held it to my face. It smelled dull and neglected. I picked up the shoe box and the sweater and carried them into my bedroom. I crawled onto the bare mattress and let the memories rise up and speak.
Inside the shoe box were letters and a few postcards sent from friends traveling to faraway places. And random photos, blurry shots that didn’t make the photo album, but were never thrown out either.
I found a picture of a campground where Kevin and I had spent a weekend, and an unfocused picture of my sister, mouth full of potato salad, at a family picnic.
There were several from last Christmas. Kevin sitting by the tree, looking miserable. Heather and her boyfriend, long gone now, smooching under the mistletoe. My mother waving as she walked in the door. Of me, sitting on the couch, propped up with pillows, a blanket over my legs. I’m wearing the red sweater, unsmiling, pale and thin, like a Siberian famine victim. I tore the photo into pieces.
It’s early morning, barely seven, and the sun tries to break the dark. The trees, bright with new leaves, reach into the sky, licking up the first rays. I curl my legs under me and stare out the window. Kevin, holding a coffee cup, stands over me.
“How long, Kate?” He pauses, waiting for me to respond, but I have no answers. He tries again. “How long are you planning to live like this? Moping inside this house? It’s been six months.”
I pull my red sweater tight against my body and stare out the window. How long does it take to turn the world around?
Kevin holds out a piece of paper. “Are you coming?” he says.
It’s an invitation to a party. Black tie, it says, eight p.m., it says, celebrate Donna Walsh’s promotion, it says.
I’m so tired. If I close my eyes, I dream; if I keep them open, life continues around me as if nothing has changed. I’m not sure which is worse.
Kevin drops the invitation onto my knees. “I’m going.”
I nod. I know what he means. He’s going. To the party, to the city, to the bed of his mentor, his lover, Donna Walsh. He’s going, going, gone.
He pokes at the invitation. “I’ve waited a long time for you to heal, to get back to yourself.” He shakes his head, a disappointed parent at wits’ end with his dopey child. “It’s time to get on with life, Kate.”
I turn to him and look into his deep brown eyes. “Then go. Get on with life.”
His eyes widen, then narrow with the shock.
I wave a hand toward the door.
“Don’t wait for me,” he says.