“Who cares, if it means I never have to hear you bitch at me again?”
Resigned, I say, “Great. I’m going to pack up the rest of my stuff and head to the apartment, then.”
As I leave the kitchen I glance back at Alex, who is happily chomping away on his muffin and staring at his phone, completely indifferent.
Once Alex agreed to get an apartment to share, things happened fast. He found one a block away from his office. I agreed based on the pictures and the next day it was a done deal. The apartment is a small one-bedroom, furnished in sterile grays…not exactly my style, but I would do my best to make it comfortable.
It’s been hours of packing and organizing when I finally shove the last suitcase and laundry basket into the back of my Jeep and head back into the house for one last box. It holds my record player and a stack of LPs I grabbed randomly from my collection. Alex and the boys are still upstairs as I head to the front door carrying the box.
“Danielle!” Alex yells from upstairs.
“What?”
“Was just checking to see if you were still here,” he says as he makes his way to the landing and looks down at me standing near the front door.
“I’m leaving in a few minutes. I’ll say goodbye,” I say, struggling to hold on to the heavy box.
“Wait a minute.” Alex comes down the stairs and approaches me. I set the box down.
“What?” I say, impatient.
“You’re taking the record player?”
“You’re kidding, right? I’m the only one who uses it. It’s mine. Yes, I’m taking it.”
He reaches down and flips through the stack of LPs in the box.
“And these records? The boys listen to these.”
“No they don’t. No one has used this thing for years. I want to get back into collecting. This wasmycollection. I had it before I even knew you.”
He holds up Bruce Springsteen,Born in the U.S.A.“This is mine. You hate Bruce,” he says.
“I do not hate him. Fine, take it out. Whatever.”
It’s true. That album is Alex’s, but the stunt he’s pulling right now has nothing to do with the record player or the albums, or goddamn Bruce Springsteen.
“What are you holding on to, Alex?” I say quietly. “It’s definitely not me.”
He looks up, a seriousness that is void of anger washes over him. “That room is not your mother’s, it wasn’t before she got sick and it’s not now that she has passed.”
“You’re seriously lacking a sensitivity chip. I don’t want to talk about that room right now.” I haven’t yet started crying, thankfully. “I’m taking the record player to the apartment. It’s not like I’m donating it. You will be there too, and you’re welcome to use it then.” A few beats of silence sit heavy between us. “I used to write on these LP sleeves, remember?”
“I remember.”
Part of the collection was my father’s. He had started the tradition when he and my mom first got married. He would write a few sentences about what was going on in his life on the white LP sleeves. Every time he would play a song from that album, it brought the memory to the surface. Many of his notes were about Ben and me growing up. Things like, “Ben took his first steps today. Irene caught him just before he tumbled into the coffee table. Supermom!”
The year Ben died, my parents divorced. They couldn’t recover from the loss. My mother became hardened and bitter…mean. She was verbally abusive toward my father, toward everyone. But my father had been checked out completely at that point anyway. He’s existed in some alternate universe ever since. It’s a place where there is no love and therefore no chance to lose it. Even though ten years ago he moved less than a half an hour away from us, I only see him once or twice a year, on a holiday or birthday, where he’ll stop in, have a meal, leave a gift, and go home. He barely knows my children, but every month he deposits two hundred dollars into their college funds. It’s too hard for him to be close to us. He never remarried, he’s just alone, going to his job as an insurance adjuster, punching the clock, eating, and sleeping. Barely existing. Even music is too strong of a reminder for him, so he gave me his entire record collection.
I continued the tradition for years, making little notes on the LP covers about what was going on in my life. Those memories are forever attached to the songs. Most notes naturally involved Alex or the boys. It wasmything andmycollection and Alex knows that.
“This is how I fell in love with writing,” I tell him. “By making these notes on the inside covers, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember, Danielle. You did that for a few years. So you think it’s gonna help you get over your writer’s block?”
“I don’t have writer’s block anymore. I wrote a pilot script in one day two weeks ago.”
“I’m sure we’ll hear about it endlessly until you write something else.”
