A few days ago, we got Dad settled into his new place at the memory care facility fifteen minutes away. The staff did their best to create a comfortable, safe space for Dad where assistance is never more than a button-push away. We brought his favorite reclining chair, his TV set, and one of his model trains. His memories may be waning, but setting up that train beside CeeCee with Dad’s interspersed help is a memory I won’t forget. At the first whistle of the train, Dad’s face broke out into a wide smile, and I will carry that sight with me forever.
“You can’t just pull Imogen from school, from her friends,” Mom protests, which CeeCee and I knew she would. “I’ll be fine.”
“Fine is not good enough for you, Mom,” I say. “We’re gunning for great and will settle for good.”
“I’d like to see Imogen graduate from the same high school I did,” CeeCee continues, sounding excited about this new chapter of her life. “Bring both kids to the playland at the rock museum. It’s settled.”
Mom ultimately relents.
CeeCee, James, and Imogen fly out to Colorado first. Drew and I aren’t long to follow.
Drew decided he could use some time off from the shop and knew CeeCee could use an extra pair of hands with the packing. I think, too, now that we’re committing to this—each other—fully, he wants to use this time to reconnect with CeeCee as well. They were friends for years after the wedding thanks to my boneheaded public persona. I want that again for them.
Mom stays behind to be close to Dad in case he has trouble adjusting.
By the time Drew and I arrive, the house, a cute two-story, is already on the market. James has gotten approval to work fully remote, CeeCee has been transferred to the New Jersey branch of her company, and they’ve secured Imogen a spot in a highly coveted preschool. All that’s left to do is box up their entire lives. A massive undertaking.
Our world becomes consumed with packing tape, takeout food, and bubble wrap. Not necessarily in that order. And not necessarily in that line of priority either.
Imogen sits for hours popping bubbles. One day, after a lunch of burgers and truffle fries, I ask her what she’s doing, and without missing a beat, she says in a complete deadpan, “Helping.” I reiterate the story to the entire family but nobody laughs. I can’t quite get her delivery down. Damn, I’ve got a lot to learn from that child.
On the third night, pulled from sleep yet again by Imogen’s loud white-noise machine blasting through the wall, I creep out of bedand downstairs in the dark for a glass of water. Ever since Dad’s surgery scare, I haven’t gotten much rest.
Unlike the first two nights, I notice a light on in the basement. The house is old, but doesn’t give off distinctly haunted energy, so I slip on my shoes, which I’ve left by the front door, and sneak down to investigate.
The basement is half-finished. One of those projects that surely got put on the back burner when Imogen arrived—a nursery being more important than a hangout space. CeeCee stands in a pair of pink sleep pants and a tank top, hair in a top bun, looking around at a mess of boxes. It’s nothing like the upstairs, where everything was arranged with perfect precision before we began hauling it all onto trucks and into pods.
“CeeCee?” I call. She spins around as if broken from a trance. “Everything okay?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says with a severe lack of conviction. “Couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d make myself useful.” Her eyes dart around the gray space as if she’s overwhelmed. A chill cuts through the cold floor, making me wonder how she’s standing there in only thin slippers.
“Need some help?” I offer.
“Sure,” she says, using her knee to nudge a box in my direction. I pull a string on a second overhead bulb, and the pool of light illuminates even more mess. Christmas decorations. Deck chairs. An old mailbox. I didn’t realize we had so much more to do. “I want to get out of here as soon as possible, so the quicker this all goes, the quicker I can breathe again.”
“Did you like living here?” I ask, mostly to fill the space.
“I tried to, but you can only like a place so much when you move there out of necessity.” Her bun slips a little further out of its holder as she inspects some cushions that will probably end up in the dumpster parked in their driveway.
“You didn’t want to come out here?” I ask, surprised.
“We told people the move was for James’s work, but really, we were running away out of embarrassment over Doop folding and…” Her fingers wiggle in my direction like she’s casting a spell on me. Before the split in our relationship, I often thought of CeeCee as a twin. Someone whose mind I could read in any situation. I know she’s referring to my jokes and similar consequences to the ones that plagued Drew.
The remorse doesn’t weigh on me as much knowing that our relationship is on the mend. That some of that pain has been scrubbed away.
I take that in as I wander over to the finished section of the basement, where the concrete gives way to brown carpet. On the far wall, there’s a closet, which I’m certain is chock-full of junk, yet the first thing I see when I open the accordion door is CeeCee’s wedding dress in a transparent hanging bag. Perfectly preserved. Just the sight of it floods me with memories.
CeeCee comes up beside me. “I thought about selling it at one point. We needed the money, and it was just…there. But I couldn’t. I don’t know why. I couldn’t part with anything from that day. I was scared someone from Doop would come after me if I did.” She rolls her eyes at herself.
We dig through the remnants. A digital photo frame. A cake plate. The signage that still reads like an ad for oatmeal. Beneath all that and other miscellaneous keepsakes, I notice bag handles poking up from beneath a swath of fabric. What I pull out makes my heart stop.
“Are those…?” CeeCee asks.
“I think so,” I mutter.
Leftover goody bags.
Awed, she says, “I had no idea those were down here, I swear.”
