The Box

 

Damn it. She’d forgotten about this box labelled Stephen’s things.

How long had it been in there in the back of her bedroom closet? Seven? Ten? More?

Stephen had been Jeremy’s friend, something that hadn’t pleased her. He was a troubled kid, staying with a foster family, his sixth, he had said. He was to be moved to the seventh when he brought the box to her asking her to keep it. She had shoved it in her closet and forgotten it.

Now her house was so full of boxes that she had to weave around them to move from room to room. They were mostly filled with books marked, flat, library, charity shops. Condensing a 10-room, three-story house into a two-bedroom apartment was downsizing at its extreme.

The movers would be there tomorrow to complete the transition from her life since she moved there as a bride to that of a widow with a son who had his own family.

Some of the boxes were toys, Jeremy’s toys. Alice, Jeremy’s wife, said she would love to give them to Jeremy’s son or at least go through them before taking them to the Salvation Army store.

The past three months had been full of decisions as she looked at the memories of her life: sell, move, throw out, sell, move, throw out, sell, move…

*****

“I don’t know, Mom. I haven’t seen Stephen for I don’t know, years.” Jeremy said over the phone.

“Could you try and find him. I have a box of his things.”

She heard her son sigh. He sighed a lot lately when she tried to involve him in her move. He had been adamant she shouldn’t sell the house until his father had been dead a year. It went on the market the anniversary of Jim’s death. Two months later she signed the papers.

She was looking forward to her new place. Jeremy thought she’d made the decision to buy it far too quickly, but she knew the moment she had walked in, that it was right for her. It had a fireplace that none of the other ones she looked at did. There was a view of the mountains and stores within walking distance. She finally could get rid of her car. Her pension would not have to be stretched as it was now.

“Throw it out, Mom. I bet Stephen doesn’t even remember he left it.” 

She couldn’t sleep that night, her last night where she and Jim had made love and a few quarrels. She’d nursed Jeremy there. After a nightmare Jeremy would crawl into their bed and snuggle in their safety from monsters. The brass bed would look good in her new flat with the new duvet and pillow covers. She had had plenty of linens, but she wanted the new place to have a slightly different look combined with memories of her old life. Old, new, old, new.

*****

The doorbell rang.

“I wondered it you wanted company as the movers take stuff away.” Martha had been her best friend since they had moved into the house. They had shared the daily annoyances and pleasures from the beginning.

She showed Martha Stephen’s box. “Jeremy says to throw it out, but what if Stephen comes back? What if…?”

“...I would open and see what it’s in it.” Normally, Martha and she would be drinking coffee to talk about things. The coffee pot was packed.

“Isn’t that invading Stephen’s privacy?”

Martha shook her head. “Take it with you. You don’t have to decide now. Maybe if Stephen comes back: or maybe he might not be able to find you anyway.”

*****

Three months later, she was settled. Photos and paintings were where she wanted them, drapes were hung. Once again, she could reach for a pan or a fork and know where it was instead of wondering where she’d put it.

She’d met the couple next door and even babysat one night for them. Lisa, downstairs, another widow about her age and she played tennis twice. She thought about doing an open house to get to know the other tenants in the building, even if that wasn’t normally done.

Jeremy and his family had visited and called the flat “homey.”

The box was in the hall closet neatly tucked under the coats next to the boots. Jeremy had spied it when he dropped off a plant Alice had bought for the balcony. “You still have Stephen’s box?”

“Looks like it.”

“Well, if you won’t open it, I will.”

For a moment she thought of all the thrillers that she read. Maybe it contained a terrible secret of a murder Stephen had committed. He had been a troubled kid after all.

“Mooommm.” Jeremy could still turn the word into a multi-syllable word. He went to the kitchen, found a knife and returned. “You do it or me?”

She took the knife and slit the tape.

Inside was a baseball and a flattened football. One envelope held several report cards with surprisingly good grades from four different school. Stephen’s birth certificate was almost ripped in half and taped back together. There was a photo of a woman holding a baby, maybe his mother. A towel had kept the contents from rattling.

It took her a few minutes to find tape to seal the box.

“I can throw it in the dumpster when I leave,” Jeremy said.

She shook her head as she put it in the guestroom closet. “It doesn’t take up much room.”