The following is a flash fiction piece that I wrote a couple of years ago, called Boxed Life. As with all content here, copyright applies (©Veronica Randolph Batterson).
Boxed Life
She turned on the
light and allowed her eyes to adjust.
Thirty years. Nice and
neat, stacked compactly in a corner of her basement. Three decades taking up as much space as the treadmill, an
old rocking chair and dog crate, none of which were used anymore.
Are memories like
collectibles, packed with bubble wrap and put away in storage? Were they fragile things to
recall when nostalgia demands a person to reminisce after a certain song is
played on the radio? There were
some things she wished would never resurface, many too painful for her heart to
recall. Other recollections
provided a sense of accomplishment only she could understand.
She
opened a box. A first date, an
engagement and a marriage leapt from the contents. Photos of a large wedding and a honeymoon in Italy were
tucked away. A series of new jobs,
vacations and living arrangements, until the perfect house for a family was
found, were scattered within the memorabilia.
Pregnancy was not
kind to her, with three miscarriages, until she finally gave birth to the
perfect son. There would be no
more children, but her life was consumed with her only child, often to the
exclusion of her frustrated husband.
Birthdays and holidays followed, year after year and shared with family
and friends. Many times her
husband found excuses to be absent.
With each one, his absence was reflected in the photographs, which did
not contain his image.
There was
kindergarten, a traumatic time in her life. How could she possibly give her
five-year-old to a stranger nearly every day for nine months? She suggested home schooling until her
husband put his foot down, stating a child needed to interact with others his
own age. Elementary school followed
with play dates and Boy Scouts.
When middle school entered their lives, her husband barely acknowledged
her presence, and her son suddenly changed from the angel she knew him to be to
a stranger she tried desperately to get to know.
Attitude and anger
nearly drove her out of her mind when high school made its presence known. Disposition improved but other issues
loomed. Driver’s education classes
and a learner’s permit tested her patience sorely. Her husband always fought with their son when he had to be
the designated passenger, so it fell on her shoulders to be the driving
instructor. School concerts,
parent-teacher meetings, basketball games, homecoming, summer jobs and dating
packed into four years of her teenager’s life. Suddenly graduation loomed and her own life stared back at
her, laying bare emptiness and few possibilities.
On the day they
took their son to college, it felt as if her heart were being ripped from her
chest. She walked blindly through his dorm room, helping him unpack, keeping
busy to prevent the tears from flowing.
She remembered conversation was light but strained. No one wished to discuss how she was
feeling. When it was time to say
goodbye, she promised to call her son after they made the four hour drive
home. He promised to call and text
message whenever he could. Her
husband said little.
Two hours into
their drive, her husband said that he wanted a divorce. She felt nothing but numbness. He had
found someone younger, prettier and more successful, someone with a career and
independence. He said she could
have the house.
So here she was
with that house, in the basement that contained thirty years of her life, boxed
nice and neat, as if that had been a reflection of the years she had
lived. She stared, hardly believing
where time had fled and fate had taken her. She was happy once.
Could she ever feel that way again? Her husband was gone, her child was grown and her house was
too quiet. Suddenly she was no
longer needed in the capacity she had known for nearly nineteen years.
Turning off the
light, she left the boxes. They
would be there tomorrow, just like her memories.
©Veronica Randolph Batterson
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