Boxes

A twenty year old log cabin sits atop a hill in the countryside. A field of cornflower is nestled across the street from the house. In the twilight breeze, the flowers waver and whisper good-nights to the occasional eagle or bat that soar above it. A bat twirls and flits into a tree that stands tall in the front lawn of the cabin. The ground is snowy with dandelions.

The front door is occupied with boxes. Empty boxes. So is the living room, the kitchen, and the bedroom. The only area not overpopulated is the dining room where a single box, the only full one, of old china sits, waiting to be secured in the glass cabinet beside it.

The antique clocks her uncle had collected so many years before now hang in nearly every room in the house. The clock made specially for them as a wedding present hangs in their bedroom. The Hot-Wheels car collection of his stepdad’s lines the walls of the living room, each car fitting perfectly between the lines of the boards that make up the walls of the house. Only a few are left in a small box. The neon OPEN sign, one that you’d find in a restaurant, the one that once hung in his dorm room in college, hangs now above the desk in their workroom.

Her books, her classic and contemporary friends, are all lined up in a large bookshelf that covers nearly an entire wall of their living room, their proud spines telling tale after tale of titles. The books trail back as beautiful and old as the 1855 Leaves of Grass poetry book given to her by her great-aunt Nancy when she was just sixteen to as beautiful and new as the I’ll Give You The Sun copy given to her by her best friend from college.

Next door, the kitchen tablecloth is stained in a couple places with barbecue sauce from dinner. Dishes hang, neglected, in a delicate balance in the sink, the flower patterned white plates still sticky with barbecue and potato. A trail of more empty boxes leads into the bedroom and bathroom.

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Wet footprints dot the bathroom floor. The items of his shaving kit are scattered around the sink. A couple of pieces were pushed into the sink to make room for her makeup bag. Her damp towel still lays on the floor, neglected when she was distracted by his hands and lips, getting tangled up in his arms and the bedsheets, despite her two-months-full tummy. The pillows are caved in from moans, and the sheets hang half off the bed, wrinkled and damp.

It is the two of them and no one else.

They sit now on the back porch, hand in hand, their free hands swirling glasses of white wine. Half the world sits before them, the white rind of the moon suspended by some fishing line in the air. The epitome of summer tastes sweet in their mouths, mixing perfectly with their dry wine. The whispers carried by the cornflower field tickles her face. A thin blue blanket rests on her shoulders. He sits beside her, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. He finishes his glass and releases his grip for a moment to reach down and grab the half-empty bottle from the ground.

She is looking out at where the horizon should be, but at this time of night, she can only distinguish a dark line of trees. She wonders about the house, about the work that still needs to be done, about the job she has not yet received—and she worries.

She worries about the money, the bills, the college debt they are in because they wanted that first apartment, they wanted it so badly, and her parents refused to pay for her tuition after that. All eight grand, and the apartment, was a weight on her shoulders, until a few months ago when they got the deal on this house. She worries about the tattoo she got on her shoulder blade, and worries so, because her parents did not like that either. She worries because the house is so messy and because her parents do not like that he rides a motorcycle, and she worries because she thinks they are disappointed in her.

She worries about the child. She worries that Junior will grow up with grandparents who do not care for him because he or she is half a product of him.

She worries more than she says.

But he knows. He knows by the way she chews her thumb, peeling off dead skin. How she sometimes stares past his face while he speaks to her at dinner, or avoids him all together as she is doing right now, becoming lost in the black space of the sky that threatens to overwhelm her.

He worries, too. He worries about the bills, about the kid. He worries about his job he hangs so precariously too. He worries about asking for a raise when the child is born. If he will get it. If the child will love him and if he will be able to give the child all he or she needs in life. About his father who is creeping closer and closer to death from cancer, and if the same fate will meet him someday.

He shakes his head. They are not holding hands anymore.

He reaches over and brushes his fingers against her cheek. She blinks her gorgeous blue eyes and turns to him, retracting her thumb from her mouth. A small smile aligns between her cheeks. She grasps his fingers and kisses each one of them.

A mess, but a happy one. And whose life isn’t? They are not meant to be shaped into perfect spheres, but crafted and molded into something imperfect and beautiful. To be spun on a pottery wheel and dug into by cracks and crevices with age, but turn out gorgeous all the same.

They look at each other and smile. Their glasses clink together as they kiss.

A toast to their new life together.

Image by : @thirdcoasttribe