Nov. 16 The Shoe Box Introduction to a Known Stranger

 

“You shouldn’t do this alone,” Pat, my best friend, said as soon as I opened the door.

I was cleaning out my late mother’s flat, my chore. My brother was handling the paperwork.

My mother had been single for years, but had a successful career as a saleswoman. None of this struggling woman crept for her, she would say.

After my mother’s divorce, we all breathed a sigh of relief. My parents, who were otherwise sane people, couldn’t be in the same room for five minutes without a fight. At least it was verbal, not like some stories, I’ve heard. 

After the divorce, my mother swore off men. She might go out to dinner with a widower or a newly divorced man. She might even play doubles tennis, but that was as far as she would allow it.

Pat and I worked hard all morning. My mother didn’t collect much except for books. Pat and I divided them. My brother had already taken everything he had wanted.

After a tomato soup lunch from a can I found in the closet, I said, “I suppose we should tackle the bedroom. I dread it.”

“Why?”

“It is personal just to her. The rest of the flat was where we ate meals, talked, watch DVDs and just lately Netflix.” 

Pat understood and she tackled my mother’s underwear for me.

I started removing her clothes from the closet. In her later years she hadn’t kept much of her business clothes. It was mostly slacks and tops, one good suit and one good dress for special occasions. My mother cared about how she looked. She’d say, “I was cuter at 20 but I can be the cutest 80-year-old in the building.”

Mom’s shoes were lined up neatly in a shoe rack. When the closet was empty, in one corner I found a shoe box.

I opened it.

It was filled with letters that she tied in three packets, two with a vioet ribbon, one with a string. Maybe she'd run out of ribbon. Maybe she started with string and wanted something better. Some were hand written, some typed and some from a printer.

I sat on the bed. Pat sat next to me.

“Oh, my God,” I said as I started to read.

“Darling Vivian…”

I miss you so. You have made my life worth living.

B

My dearest,

When we were in the Jackson house, all I could imagine was taking you by the hand and leading you to the bedroom.

I adore you,

B

All the letters were in the same vein, some bordering on pornography, some tender.

We learned B had a wife. We learned that Mom didn’t want anyone to know about them not so much because he was married and she would look like the cruel other woman, but because she was happy with them just they were.

“Maybe we shouldn’t read anymore,” Pat said when we were halfway through.

Maybe Pat was right, but I couldn’t stop reading about a woman whom I thought I knew but had become a stranger…or at least a small part of her did. What was most frustrating for the rest of my life I would have question about my mother. I would never have answers,