When I am dry, David stands sweet and motionless in front of me, brushing my cheek softly. He looks tired. But I think I see something else, too. Confusion. And maybe worry. I wonder why.
* * *
An hour or so after our shower, I reach into my closet to drag out the boxes from Michael. After a brief chat with David, I decide that I need to get them the hell out of here so I have no trace of Michael left in my life. David says that he thinks it’s a great idea, and he’s happy to toss them straight into the Dumpster without a second glance. But I tell him that I need to check them out first. I need to know if there is anything important packed inside. If Michael kept my father’s dog tags, who knows what else he held on to?
David puts his iPhone into the dock, and the loose and melodic sounds of The Kooks fill the room. He sits down cross-legged on my bed and fiddles with the scissors he just used to cut the tape from the cardboard.
The first box I delve into is the one that contained the picture of my mother and me at the family reunion . As I open the flaps, I can’t help but glance over at the photograph sitting on my bedside table and remember how I felt that day. How my mother and father looked and how proud I was to call that man my daddy. David is sitting there, watching me carefully, no doubt ready to scoop me up off the floor if that motherfucker Michael messes with my emotions again. I know, though, that there is not a single thing in these boxes that is going to rocket me off an emotional cliff. I know that I won’t wind up sobbing on the floor. And I know this because now that Michael is gone, the only emotions these boxes can hold are good ones. The only memories they can dredge up now are the ones that I want to remember. The things that I decide to feel and recount. Not the thoughts and ideas that Michael forces on me.
As I dig through the box, I find that it is indeed filled with positive memories. Books I read in high school—To Kill a Mockingbird, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Count of Monte Cristo. CDs I left behind when I went to college. Dried-up bottles of nail polish. I lay them all out on my bed next to David. He laughs at the obnoxious colors. Once again, I tell him to “fuck off” and remind him that I was a hot number in high school. He smirks at me and tells me that I still am. I kiss him on the cheek, and I think I see him blush.
The second box is filled with volleyball ribbons and trophies. When I put them on the bed, David picks a few of them up, rolling them around in his hands and smirking. He is suddenly filled with questions about what position I played, if I played any other sports, why I didn’t play in college. It is a great conversation, filled with a delightful energy and rife with hints of David’s appreciation for “sporty girls.” One of my old balls is tucked into the bottom of the box, and even though it is half deflated, we spend a bit of time playfully hitting the ball back and forth over the bed. David is on his feet now, obviously feeling more comfortable with what is in the boxes. He helps me empty the third one.
Amongst a few more books and knickknacks, I find two photo albums. One is of my family when I was young. I show David the pictures of my mother and brothers first. They were taken before I was even born. He says my brothers look like a couple of little nerds. I smile and tell him again that they were sweet kids when they were young. My father is in a few of the photographs as well, though he was probably behind the camera for most of them. He is sinewy with light hair, and in my favorite photograph, his arm is draped around my mother’s shoulders and I am standing at his feet. I must only be about two years old. My hair is pulled back in a barrette, and my smile is as wide as the ocean. It fills up my entire face. David picks up the photo album and holds it close to his face, examining me carefully and noting how much I looked like my mother even then. He says that my mother was beautiful, and he can see how bad my father had it for her by the way they are touching in some of the pictures. He winks at me when he says it, and it makes my insides smile.
The other photo album is smaller and consists of pictures that were taken after my father died. It is filled with images of my brothers playing high school football. I know that our babysitter, Carol, took most of these pictures because Michael and my mother seldom made it to the games. There are images of both Ricky’s and Evan’s college graduations; in them Michael is smiling like a motherfucker, no doubt happy that tuition payments were over for a few years. Come to think of it, Michael only ended up paying for one semester of my college tuition, so, by all rights, he should have looked even happier than he did. There are also a handful of pictures of me in the album. A few from volleyball games, a team photograph from the eleventh grade, and a half-dozen pictures taken before my senior prom. When David asks me about it, I tell him all about Peter Beckman, about how he was the only non-shitty-ass boyfriend I ever had. Until now, anyway. And then I tell him how Michael ended it. David does not look a bit surprised when I tell him about prom night.