Things of Yours
Fiction. In a family where a lifetime of feelings are unspoken, they exist as things in an apartment.
“If the Lord came and told us today was the day, I’d be ready with one suitcase!”
We sat on red picnic benches outside Costco in San Jose eating $1.50 hot dogs. Me and my dad were on a break from cleaning my Aunt Doris’s apartment, which had been hoarded in for what looked like decades but was only a couple years. They had cleaned it out back then when the landlord threatened to evict Doris. This time it was because Aunt Eunice was dying, we needed to find her will, and as Eunice’s caretaker, Doris had it, somewhere in her apartment.
A week prior, Uncle David surprised everyone by moving tons of furniture and personal effects with bad knees and a bent back. David is the kind of guy who makes complex cabinetry and looks after neighbors when it snows. Family members shake their heads and wince at the thought of him going up and down those stairs like an old sherpa. David is admired for this, and under that is implicit shame for Doris. How did she get to this point? Was she over-pampered as the youngest child? Born just before the migration, did she just not get enough time on the farm? California changes farmers.
When, after an hour of searching, I found the binder, we felt something like disappointment. Doris’s place needed to be hauled out and scoured. The kitchen was not just unusable, it was inaccessible. Things in the sink made a mellow, funky smell that gave the space an abandoned trailer character. It was intimate and human and didn't feel safe.
The pots and bowls that had contained Doris’s last home cooked meal held what ecologists call perched water tables until the water evaporated, leaving tiny lines down the side demarcating the decline of isolated aquatic civilizations. The last fungal bloom, once floating, now a dry circle annealed to the flat bottom of the bowl.
David seems in good spirits at Costco. If he and Dad mourn the family that was, I cannot detect it. They catch up on the physical ailments of other family members. We pray over the hot dogs.
Back in the day, David and Tricia’s house was large and spotless. Prior to holiday meals, I begged for access to my cousins’ toys but was turned down because the house was clean. One time we went outside and threw dirt clods at each other. This resulted in my cousin Bill, the eldest, being sent to his room and bad vibes for everyone. Only one project was allowed to make a mess, the production of supper, and that mess was cleansed moments after it was made. The only ongoing mess permitted was us children ourselves. During the interminable talking that followed eating, we were granted permission to leave the table, which we did by disappearing and crawling underneath and out the end. I asked again to see cousin Bill’s coveted collection of toy cars and my sister to see Sue’s dolls. They were a few years older and seemed exhausted by us. Whatever was taken out was put away before we were gone.
David and Tricia had moved from a large house into a small condo in the retirement community, but claimed to have more room than they needed.
“Just the one suitcase, and it’s a little one! I’m ready!” She said it like she was announcing super. She was letting us know it was going to be ok when she died, but she seemed awfully spry, like if Death found out where she lived, she could be out of there and on a plane before He left His driveway.
I wondered what was in the suitcase. It seemed insufficient for a comfortable life but excessive for death. David had nothing to say about a suitcase, so I assumed Tricia had packed for both of them.
That afternoon, we cleared out more of Doris’s apartment. We were limited by the capacity of the apartment dumpster. If we were serious about this, we would need to rent our own dumpster. As the only owner of functioning knees, it was up to me to set goals: liberate the sink and enough of the kitchen to support life, organize cat infrastructure to minimize health risk.
Doris sat in her recliner with headphones on. Occasionally, I roused her to ask about a particular item. She was not hostile nor supportive, but had a kind of poker face. We were overstepping our mission, having found the binder, and now every item we removed was subject to her veto. I felt a drive to cleanse the place that was more primal and compulsive than mere altruism and Doris sensed it. Our opposite urges touched and rang each other like gongs and filled up the room. I tread lightly.
I was given a hero’s recognition later that evening, but we were really just tourists. Doris’s apartment filled up again, she was evicted, and an actual hazmat crew with body suits and respirators cleared it out, putting everything in a dumpster, precious or not.
Tricia died later that year. Diagnosed with several forms of late stage cancer, David is on palliative care. He gets around on a scooter and attempts to look after other residents of the retirement community, which now includes Doris. As far as I know, he does not complain about or describe his medical problems unless asked. This is a life-goal I aspire to that I did not know I would ever have.