Are You Sitting Down? (42 page)

Justin took the box from her, carefully opening the lid to reveal a bed of soft white cotton that glistened like snow.
Ju
s
tin’s medal was lying inside, probably just as shiny as the day he’d won it.
Its yellow ribbon was frayed at the edges, but just as bright as a lemon.
He picked it up by the ribbon and took it out of the box, letting it dangle in front of us.

“Thank you so much, Mrs. Black.
You don’t know how much this means to me,” he said with honesty.

“Justin would have wanted you to have it,” Helen said.

Her voice cracked as if she might tear up, but she held back.

I wanted to ask to see it.
I wanted to hold it in my hand and feel the weight of its value.
It was just a child’s piano r
e
cital me
d
al, but
it
might have been worth enough at the pawn shop to put a tank of gas in the car one week or to pay the w
a
ter bill.
If it was in Justin’s old room or in the basement, I can’t believe I never found it before.
I couldn’t believe Helen’s ge
n
erosity and willingness to part with it.

I r
e
frained from asking Travis to take a look.
It was too late.
It was his now, but just another reason to hate Helen.
I
faked a
smile for Travis’s appr
e
ciation of the gift.

Mrs. Black

After destroying the miniature of the White’s house, I turned to go back upstairs.
I took a quick look around the basement because I had not been down here in years.
It was as if I had discovered a secret room behind a bookcase and was seeing it now for the first time.
I couldn’t remember what the basement looked like, nor could I remember it ever looking so clean.

Manny spent so much time down here so I expected it to be dusty and littered with fast food wrappers and trash.
I
n
stead, it was immaculately clean with no trash at all.
The storage boxes in the corner were stacked neatly and labeled.
For a moment, I thought they were train parts until I paused to read some of the writing on the box
es
.
A few of the boxes had
JUSTIN
written on the side of them in neat black
letters
.
I could not remember packing these boxes after
Justin
died.
It was because I didn’t.
These were boxes that had accumulated while he was still li
v
ing at home.

I walked over to the boxes and lifted the lid o
ff
the top one.
Inside was a stack of piano sheet music, along with some of his very first books of piano lessons.
His name was written in faded blue ink at the top of each piece, some in my han
d
writing when he was young and some in his own.
I managed to lift the heavy box and scoot it to the edge of its stack.
Its weight pulled my arms downward as I moved it to the floor so that I could look inside the next box underneath.

The second box was full of framed awards.
They were cheap black diploma frames I’d always found at the dollar store every time Justin had received a certificate for the Straight A Gold Club or for perfect attendance.
Each year I had neatly framed his awards and hung them above his bed.
When he passed to be in the next grade and received a consecutive award for the same thing the following semester, he’d take down the one from the year prior and hang up the new one in its place.
I should have recycled the frames and scrap booked the pas
t
awards, but I never did.

I counted twelve frames for Straight A grades, one for every year of school all the way through high school.
He had at least eight perfect attendance awards.
He
was a
healthy child and missed less than two weeks of school
all together.
The awards from high school became more plentiful as he became involved in other activities like
debate team
, science club, and the foreign language union.
There were two plaques for his
wins
in track.

I thought the next box might be full of his recital tr
o
phies, but most of those were packed in boxes in his room.
I’d kept them displayed on the mantel long after he moved to
Memphis
, removing them only a few months after his funeral.
I don’t know why I took them down, besides them being m
e
mentos of when Justin was growing up.
For some reason, I felt the need to pack them away like all the other memories I’d filed over the years.

Instead, the next box was
actually
a file
itself
.
Credit card account statements, paycheck stubs, and random receipts were all filed by the month and year.
Justin had always been meticulous about keeping his life organized, a trait that had since failed both of his parents.
I pulled out one of his paycheck r
e
cords and looked at the date.
It was from fifteen years ago when he was working at the wicker store but had not yet been promoted to manager.

A heap of small receipts in an envelope revealed gas fill-ups for his car and fast food purchases over a few months.
I quickly sifted through the small pieces of paper which all looked the same, some printed in purple ink, some in black, and some on yellow carbon copy paper.
I don’t know why he kept them, but it was a jarring feeling to know I could put them in order by the date and time and track my son’s life for months— maybe years— from so long ago.

Amongst the pile was a small envelope.
I held it up to the light only to find what looked like another receipt inside.
Despite feeling like a prying mother, I opened it.
It was a r
e
ceipt for coffee at a diner from almost twelve years ago.
Although it had been protected inside the envelope, it had still yellowed a bit.
Nothing in particular would have made it stand out from all the other pieces of proof of payment, except that Justin had written Travis’s name at the top of it and circled the date.

There was no explanation on the back.
There didn’t need to be.
Justin had wanted to remember this trip to the diner for some reason and it had involved Travis.
The exact reason was tucked away in his head.
Had he known Travis then?
Maybe this receipt was from the first time they met or their first date.
I put it back in the envelope and tucked it into my pocket.

The file box was lighter than the other boxes I had sifted through.
I pushed it to the side and decided to take a peek into one more box.
My trip down memory lane had become sad and tired, although I had yet to shed a tear.
Upon opening a
n
other box, I discovered a treasure chest of multiple items, some of which might not have even belonged to Justin.
There was an old wallet with a dollar in it, some keys, small empty gift bags and boxes, cat toys, ink pens, a few birthday cards, a couple of books, and a half burnt candle that had faded over time.

I shuffled through the contents quickly and found not
h
ing of real importance until I came across a small jewelry sized box at the very bottom.
Curious, I retrieved it from the mess and opened it to take a look.
I knew what it was as soon as I put my eyes on it.
With its shiny engraved surface and frayed yellow ribbon, it was a medal.
This was another one of Justin’s awards which I was surprised to find stored away in a box like this with such a hodge-podge of other unimportant items.

The me
d
al was significant because Justin had won it at his very first piano recital.
He had been so proud of it and wore it around the house for days.
It eventually found a place on the mantel hanging around the neck of one of his trophies.
I had no idea how it ended up down here.
I took it out of its box and held it by the ribbon, letting it fall to the length of it like a
pe
n
dant
.
The medal dangled and spun at the end of its rope, a shiny golden coin that had filled a child’s heart with such riches.
I felt a tear o
f happiness slide down my cheek because the look on his face back then had filled my heart also.

I put the medal back in its box and into my pocket with the receipt and restacked the boxes back as they were
,
neatly on top of each other with the lids closed.
I took another last look around the basement hoping to find more forgotten boxes from our past.
There was only the hot water heater and the
fu
r
nace
.
Going back up the stairs, I turned out the light on the memories of who my son was to me, stored in boxes next to the mini re
p
lica of th
is
town we live
d
in.

Manny was still on the sofa where I had seen him last, slumped over in
to
a
growling
nap.
I went up the stairs to the bedroom and closed the door.
Locking it was just a habit and to keep Manny out, although he had not come upstairs to sleep in the bed in years.
I could count on one hand the number of times we had made love since Justin was conceived.
It didn’t matter, especially now.
I had known for some time that Manny pr
e
ferred the company of other men, just like his son.

I wanted to blame Manny for some disease Justin had inherited from him, but the cancer he inherited from me was much worse.
Besides, I didn’t believe that homosexuality was hered
i
tary—I still don’t—no matter how much Justin preached it to me.
Instead, I chose to convince myself that I never knew.
Ju
s
tin had never told me.
It was all an odd dream, the kind you don’t remember five minutes after waking up.

I felt the same way about Manny, but it was easier to pretend I didn’t know about him because he’d never told me.
I’d wasted my whole life married to the man out of conve
n
ience really.
He kept us fed and clothed and kept the bills paid, by the skin of his teeth sometimes but he managed.
I never worked a day in my life, and maybe I
was
selfish for standing by him all this time but we all reach a point in our life where we stop thinking about the better things.
We stop dreaming of tomo
r
row because we’ve opened our eyes to too many days of the harsh boring reality of the fruitless life we’ve been living.
We accept the fact it is not going to get any better.

The headlights of a car crossed the window.
It was someone pulling into the drive.
I had no idea who would be visiting us at this hour, or visiting here at all.
I hoped it wasn’t carolers.
I went to the window to look out and saw Travis ge
t
ting out of
his
car and walking up the sidewalk.
If Manny did not wake up to go to the door, I was not going to go down and answer it e
i
ther.
I stood at the window, hidden behind the drapes, waiting to see if Travis would be walking back to his car and driving away.
He knocked and then knocked again.
Then, I heard Manny
’s voice
and all went quiet outside as he let Travis in.