Mom rolls her eyes, but folds the shorts and places them on the pile. “You can’t keep everything, you know.”
“I’m not.” My head tips toward the toss pile, a mass grave of softball trophies and seventh-grade diaries. “I’m getting rid of a ton.” Mom is really the one to thank for that. If not for her, that toss pile would be less than half its size. But also, if not for her, I wouldn’t be cleaning out in the first place. Would it have killed them to wait a week and put the house on the market after my accounting final? When I suggested it, Mom gave me a very calm, apologetic explanation that boiled down to “not a goddamn chance.” Something about closings overlapping and needing liquid funds from the house. The second she started using terms I didn’t recognize, I dropped the subject. With the photographer coming to take listing photos tomorrow night, I have just over twenty-four hours to box away any evidence that someone, god forbid a twenty-one-year-old community college student, lives here.
“Okay, only half a dresser to go.” Mom tugs open a bottom drawer and pinches out a royal-blue softball jersey, holding it up like she’s a human clothesline. “When’s the last time you wore this?”
My stomach bottoms out. “When I played softball.”
“So…four years ago? More?”
“I didn’t keep it towear.”
Mom frowns, waiting on an explanation that I don’t have. Why did I keep it? Because throwing it away felt like defeat, and donating it would feel wrong unless I could somehow pass it down to the current number nine for the Geneva High School softball team. The damn thing’s probably cursed, though, and that poor girl would end up injured, just like me.
Mom spins the jersey around, giving me a 360-degree view. “So what are we doing with it?”
I chew my lip and think. What would High School Murph say? “Keep.”
She arches one brow toward her hairline, like a cat stretching its back. “Really?”
I hug my knees a little tighter. I guess I’m overdue to officially close that chapter. “Fine. Toss.”
Mom’s other eyebrow joins the one at the top of her forehead. “Really?”
“Is there a right answer here?”
“No, no, that’s just fine. We can toss it.” With all the tender care of throwing out a used napkin of unknown origin, Mom pinches the jersey and drops it beside the toss pile. The nylon fabric wrinkles and pools, forming a royal-blue puddle on the carpet. No sooner has she dropped it than she’s holding up a new shirt, a new memory and version of myself to hold tight to or altogether abandon. “What’s this one from?” She inspects the graphics closer. “Key Club? You weren’t eveninKey Club.”
We work our way to the bottom of each remaining drawer inthe same way—Mom holding up high school memories while I delegate where they should be dropped. Each goodbye gets a little easier, and I get a little lighter. The toss pile has at least doubled in size, my stash bag has been safely and discreetly placed in the keep pile, and the thud of the last hollow drawer closing sounds like something close to a fresh start.
Mom struggles to her feet, patting the top of the dresser twice with her palm. “Chess said to leave this for staging, so that’s a wrap on that.”
This is about the thousandth time I’ve heard Chess’s name since they broke the moving news. I’m not sure how someone finds themselves in the business of staging houses, but with the way my parents talk about her, you’d think she was the Jesus Christ of Interior Design. Every suggestion is immediately logged as gospel, and every critique is met with a look of bewilderment and shame, as if there were no greater humiliation than realizing you painted your bathroom in the shade Eggshell instead of opting for the ever-popular Water Chestnut.
“How are they going to stage this room, you think?”
“Chess wants to make it into a kids room,” Mom says.
I frown. “Isn’t it already kind of a kid’s room?”
“Alittlekid’s room. To appeal to younger parents.”
I stare at the room as though I’m playingThe Sims, deleting my double bed and rotating a bunk bed until it’s flat up against the wall. “Is she going to get rid of my bed?”
“No, you still have to sleep here. Chess agreed that the bed can stay.”
Chess this and Chess that and Chess thinks we ought torepaint the trim to dress the place up a bit. I wonder if Chess has a degree in being a picky bitch.
“So what’s next, you think?” Mom asks. “The closet? The Wall of Fame?”
I’m a little bit pleased that she remembers what I call that wall, but a lot bit discouraged that it all has to come down. If anyone is going to undo the years of collaging, it has to be me. “You take the closet, I’ll take the Wall of Fame?”
She nods twice and drags over a Sterilite bin, already half full of old birthday cards and notes passed in middle school that I don’t have time or emotional energy to sift through yet. It doesn’t have to be all packed until they actually do the move. For now, it just has to be clean.
When Mom half disappears behind the rolling closet door, I sneak a quick look at my email inbox for the umpteenth time today, pulling down at the top until the whole screen bounces and refreshes. No new emails, not even a promotional one for a sale or something. It’s only been a day, but how long could it take for Ellie to reply to an email that’s only a few words long? Maybe I should’ve been more straightforward. I could’ve made an actual case for myself instead of being cheeky.
“You know, if you spent a little less time on your phone, this might go by faster.”
I snap my head toward the closet, where Mom is still mostly buried among the ghosts of prom dresses past. Maybe she really does have eyes in the back of her head.
