Chapter 1
Sloane
I smiled as I put another thing in the box. It was another item to check off my list. It felt good to be almost done with it.
The first thing that Dad packed was the clock. A hunk of cheap pink plastic that was chipped around the edges, a little silver button on top that stopped working halfway through my Sophomore year.
I hadn’t looked at it in years.
Dad unplugged it from the wall anyway.
“Do you want it?” Dad asked, holding it up. I looked up from the box at my feet.
“Why would I want it?” I questioned, as I went through the drawers of my desk.
“Your mother bought it,” he replied, quietly. I stopped; there it was. The answer that neither of us had wanted to say aloud.
I stared at it for a long moment.
The tiny painted stars around the face had chipped away over time, and the colors had lightened due to years of sunlight. I remember when mom had gotten it for me.
Twelve years old, starting middle school, and I was convinced that I was going to be late on the first day, because she told me six times that I couldn’t sleep through my alarm.
I hated that clock.
Mom loved it.
I told her it was ugly.
She laughed, and put it on my nightstand anyway.
“Fine,” I said.
Dad put it, carefully, in the box. Neither of us spoke for a while.
Looking around, I realized that my room looked wrong.
Not empty yet, just interrupted.
Half my clothes were already packed, while the other half were still on hangers and hanging over the back of my desk chair. My bookshelves had been cleared, with the contents stacked in uneven piles next to my closet and my dresser. Posters had been taken down leaving pale rectangles in their wake.
This room had been mine since I was eight.
Bubblegum pink walls with butterflies and unicorns faded into teal walls with darker blue accents as I had gotten older.
Pictures of kittens and horses had turned into posters of movies, punk bands and boybands. Cases of old CDs, both burnt and bought, were stacked next to my books, and my stereo had gone into the box marked ‘attic’.
The room had been transformed into a place that I once lived.
Dad crossed the room, to one of the boxes that sat by the book case.
“Do you really need these?” he asked.
I glanced over, as he peered into the box.
“Those are my books,” I stated.
“I can see that,” Dad replied, sounding amused.
“Then why are you asking?” I asked.
“Because you’re going to college, not opening a library,” he responded, still sounding amused.
“I’m taking them,” I stated, with finality.
There was almost something normal about our exchange; which was the strange part. We were still capable of being normal.
It was no secret that I was a big reader; I tended to treat my books like precious treasures made of gold, other than the paper that they were made of. Where most girls had bags or clothes, I had books. Nursery rhymes and Dr. Suess books had turned into fantasy and teen romance.
As a kid, I had wanted books, alongside my toys, and as a teen, getting good grades meant that I would get a new book or two. Mom and Dad seemed more than happy for that, because the books weren’t that expensive.
Dad and I could argue about the books, we could complain about the amount of stuff I was taking with me, we could pretend that this was a normal summer, and I was packing to go away for a few months.
We could pretend that Mom hadn’t been gone for a year.
I grabbed a sweater and folded it, eager to have something to busy my hands and mind, as Dad opened up another drawer.
“Keep or donate?”
I looked over to see him holding a light blue knit scarf.
I knew that scarf. I didn’t realize I still had it.
It was Mom’s favorite scarf. She’d worn it the winter before she passed; I remember because I had stolen it once, when she wasn’t looking, and worn it to school.
“Keep,” I stated, smiling at the memory as sadness tugged at my chest.
Dad folded it and paused for a split second, before he finally put it in the box.
“Okay.” He said, quietly.
I turned back to the pile of my clothes; taking them off the hangers, carefully folding them, and setting them in the box in front of my dresser.
“There’s a box of her things in the attic,” Dad said, quietly.
“I know,” I responded.
“Do you want to go through it?” he asked.
I paused before folding another t-shirt. It was the simplest of questions, but it carried so much weight.
“Not right now,” I said, after a minute of silence stretched between us.
We’d been saying things like maybe later and not right now in regards to Mom’s things. None of us were ready to go through the boxes yet. It had only been a year but, personally, I thought it was too soon to go through her things.
We lapsed into silence again, where I folded another shirt and put it in the box.
A faint vibration and the muffled sound of my phone message tone reached my ears. Moving clothes aside, I tapped my phone’s screen and saw the message icon with my brother, Mason’s, name.
Mason: All packed yet?
Me: Almost
The bubble with the three dots appeared, indicating that he was writing back.
Mason: Liar.
I smiled, despite myself. Another message appeared shortly after that one.
Mason: Are you trying to take everything?
I glanced at Dad, who was busy trying to stack more of my books into another box.
Me: No.
Mason’s message came through immediately.
Mason: You can't bring everything, Sis.
That made me pause.
He said Sis.
As in Sister.
Not Sloane or the kid that followed me around.
Sis. The simple word made my chest tighten.
Mom had always been the center of us; not because dad wasn’t there, because he was, but because Mom had been the one to make appointments, call everyone for dinner, remember birthdays, holidays and other special occasions. She knew when one of us was upset, she knew when one of us was lying. She made a house full of people feel like a home.
Now there were three of us, and soon there would be two.
“You okay?” Dad’s voice reached me; I looked up to see him walk into the room with another empty box.
I looked at him and pasted a smile on my face.
“Never better,” I said. Dad studied me for a second; he knew better, but he didn’t call me on it. Instead, he turned and set the box outside the room.
“That’s enough for today,” he said. I looked around the room; there were still things everywhere. It looked like both my closet and dresser had thrown up all over the room.
“There’s so much left,” I groaned. I knew that we’d gotten a lot done, but I felt as though we hadn’t gotten anywhere.
“We always have tomorrow, kiddo,” Dad said, putting an encouraging hand on my shoulder.
Tomorrow.
I nodded, grabbing the tape to close up the box that was full of clothes in front of me. When it was taped shut and I’d labeled it with Sharpee, Dad took it off the bed. When he reached the door, he paused and looked back at the room.
His eyes moved from one thing to another; from my half-full closet, to my empty desk. For a moment, he looked as lost as I felt.
“You don’t have to take everything with you right now, Sloane,” Dad said, quietly.
“I know,” I responded.
“I didn’t mean the boxes,” he clarified. I nodded, showing that I knew what he meant, without him having to explain himself further.
He walked out with the box, leaving my bedroom door open behind him.
I took a seat on my white carpet and looked around the room that was already changing.
On the nightstand, the ugly pink clock sat in a box that was full of miscellaneous items from my nightstand and my desk.
For the first time, I was glad I kept the clock. Not because I wanted it, but because it was something my mother had given me, because she was thinking about me.
Somehow, after a year had passed, it felt like enough of a reason to hold on.
Leaning forward, I pulled one of my suitcases towards me and started zipping it up.
I would leave for college in six days.
I had spent months telling everybody I was ready, even though I think I was trying to convince myself more than anybody else.
Maybe, now that it was on the cusp of being reality, I finally was ready to make the change I had been anticipating.
Maybe I’d finally figure out how to leave home without feeling like I’m leaving her behind.
***
Growing up in a small town where everybody knew everybody else, often meant that when you went somewhere, you were instantly pulled into a conversation with someone who you haven’t seen in five years, but you speak as though you talked to each other last week.
As Dad and I sat in Fran’s Diner, neighbors, old teachers, old friends of my parents showed up to congratulate me on getting into college, tell me that Mom would’ve been proud of me.
I smiled, mechanically, and made small talk, all-the-while just hoping that they’d go on about their business and leave us be.
“You know, Sloane, I’ve been thinking about taking a vacation,” Dad said, in an off-handed way, as he looked around the diner.
“Oh?” my eyebrows shot up.
It wasn’t a bad idea, believe me, that’s not what I was thinking. After Mom passed, Dad threw himself into work. Where other men might’ve drank, gambled or got into drugs, my dad decided to work more so that we didn’t have to worry about our bills. I knew it was his way of keeping himself busy, so that he didn’t have to think about the fact that Mom wasn’t there anymore. Just like my coping mechanism had been studying and burying myself in projects so that I could forget.
My efforts had paid off, so much so that I had gotten into three out of four colleges that I applied for.
“Yeah, I figured with you in college now, maybe I could take a few days off,” Dad shrugged, as though it was no big deal.
“Well, you deserve it, Dad,” I smiled as I pushed the remnants of food around my plate, “You deserve to enjoy yourself a little bit.”
The bell on the door tinkled, signaling the arrival of another customer.
Elizabeth Montgomery strolled in, and she looked completely out of place in the little diner that smelled of bacon and grease.
Her sand-colored hair was pulled into a styled ponytail at the back of her head, she had a cream-colored sweater with black embroidery on it, a matching cream-color skirt, and heels to complete the piece.
A handbag hung from her arm, a string of quarter-sized pearls hung from her neck, and she had dark sunglasses on.
She looked like a model stepped right out of the pages of Vogue.
Totally out of place.
Looking around, she seemed to spot us, for she made a beeline towards our booth.
“Ronald, Sloane,” she graced us with a megawatt smile, “How are the two of you holding up?”
“Doing okay, Liz,” Dad said, “We’re making it day by day.”
“Please let me know if you need anything. We miss Angela as well, you all are like family,” she said, putting a supportive hand on Dad’s shoulder.
My mom, Angela Carter, had worked as an accountant for The Montgomery Company, a construction company that worked on expensive buildings and multi-million-dollar projects.
Elizabeth Montgomery was wife to the CEO of the whole operation. After mom’s accident, Elzabeth did her best to reach out, but I think Dad blamed the company a little bit. If Mom hadn’t been working late that night, she wouldn’t’ve basically fallen asleep at the wheel and gotten into the accident.
Over the past few months, I think he forgave Elizabeth, because she was at least trying to make sure we were okay.
His smile was tight, though, as he looked up at her.
“Thanks Liz, I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, his tone as tight as his smile. She smiled softly at him, before her eyes sought me out.
“Congratulations on getting into Blackwood, Sloane,” she said, “It’s a great school and so close.”
“That’s what I was going for,” I said, attempting to make my tone light.
“Well, I’d better get going,” she said, checking her expensive wristwatch, “I’ll see you all later.” With that, she seemed to glide out of the diner and back into her car.
“Fat chance,” Dad muttered, his mood suddenly soured.
“I know,” I said, nodding, as the tension settled over us.
Just a minute later, Dad announced that he was finished and he dropped his crumpled up paper napkin on top of a plate of food that had only a few bites left. I followed Dad up to the register, where he chatted with Fran, the owner, for a second.
She smiled and congratulated me on college, as she gave Dad his receipt. We said our goodbyes and made our way out into the balmy summer night.
