Natalee Grant, Contributor
She kissed him goodbye, the saltiness of his cheek preserving the memory of their latest battle. She watched him leave, her throat tightening with all the words she should have said, her head throbbing with the unexpressed evidence of her independence. She turned away as he left. The wicker furniture and the unopened boxes scattered about the living room greeted her.
Now the silence was deafening: a reprieve from their last encounter. It was odd how one word could spark a hail of verbal discontent. That was the way it always went with them: they would yell at each other and then retreat to their own corners and seethe throughout the night. Morning would find them avoiding each other's eyes and exploding with politeness, methodically carrying out their morning routines, their jerky movements indicating that any slip would be a proverbial slide that would land them once again behind enemy lines. She smiled and waved as he drove away. He nodded and hailed his neighbours, also on their way out.
It had been a week since their move and she still had not found the time to finish unpacking them. Pat knelt before one of the cartons, the one she had labelled 'pictures and stuff'. He hated that about her - that she added 'stuff' to everything she said. He was always specific, precise in everything he did. He hated how she was prone to procrastination and indecisiveness. In the 10 years they had been together she had not made a single decision without his prodding.
She opened the box and found her picture frames wrapped in newspaper. She unwrapped them and placed them on the floor. The images of their life had been captured almost frame by frame, and each picture was invested with strong sentimental value. Penelope was somewhere in the middle of it all: Penelope smiling, Penelope with missing front teeth in cap and gown, Penelope at her first piano recital. She wiped the frames with the soft dust cloth and placed them on the mantle. The pictures of the handsome groom and shy bride she placed behind Penelope's pictures. The diplomas and graduate awards, merits and accolades, she left in the box.
She left the box marked 'China' untouched - as untouched as its contents had been in the entire decade of their marriage. There had never been an occasion grand enough for her to use them.
Her box of kitchen stuff was already half-empty. She carefully unpacked her blender. Her husband had complained about not having his shake, the concoction of powdered whatever he had been drinking since he discovered it two years ago in the hope that it would shave a few years off him. The electric kettle, can opener, cake mixer -the one she hardly used because they had adopted a healthier lifestyle. There was so much stuff, stuff she couldn't separate herself from, the stuff that was supposed to make her life easier.
She leaned back on her haunches, wondering what she was supposed to do with it all. Every anniversary, every birthday brought some new gadget to her door. She got up and dragged the box to the kitchen, vowing to return to it later. Her box of bedroom stuff she dragged to the master bedroom and sat at the foot of her king-sized bed. Blankets, pillows, comforters - she had sorted them out and stored them in giant ziploc bags. She smiled when she came upon the sheet set for a twin bed; somehow Penelope's bed linen had gotten in with theirs. She unzipped it slowly and brought it to her face. The smell of cherries and candy that was distinctly Penelope's wafted up to her nose. She pushed the sheets back into the bag and placed it on her bed. She would get to it later. She opened the linen closet and packed all the bedroom stuff in it. She had more boxes to open, and a plan: all the boxes would be opened today. Then she would give the place the final decorative touch.
The box of bathroom stuff she dragged to the bathroom, and once again was amazed at all the things she had acquired for the bathroom. She unloaded the 'his and hers' towels and unpacked all the things for the medicine cabinet. Her husband had gone a week without his usual cocktail of health pills and other supplements because she had neglected to unpack the bathroom stuff; of course, this was the reason he was so unhappy. He wasn't his usual self without his health stuff. She had laughed at his use of the word 'stuff', a word he hated so immensely, a word that he said the youth of today had used as a substitute for saying anything at all because everything today was just 'stuff'. Her laughter, any mirth at all from her, was interpreted as a direct attack on him, so an argument had ensued and she had promised to have his health stuff unpacked as soon as possible. She lined the bottles up in the medicine cabinet in the order that he took them, unpacking the mouthwash, his brand of toothpaste and her brand of toothpaste, her minted floss and hand sanitizers, his aftershave and electric toothbrush - all the stuff. At the bottom of the box was a brand new bathroom set, complete with matching shower curtains and his and her bathroom robes: last year's Christmas gift.
Back in the living room she knelt before the box she had labelled 'memories'. She looked at it for a long time. She had memorised its contents. She stared at her handwriting, the lopsided m's and the swirly e's, the sharpie marker loudly announcing what she was still coming to terms with, what her husband refused to come to terms with.
She got up and walked back to the bedroom. Penelope's twin bed sheet, set with its teddy bears and beetles, was in intense disparity with her white sheets. She took it up, held it to her and walked back to the box of memories where she had placed Penelope's things when she died. As she opened it, her senses were assailed with Penelope's smell, and a sob escaped her. She slumped to the floor with Penelope's sheet in her hand and heaved sob after heart-wrenching sob. What now was the point of all their stuff?
- Natalee Grant
