Are You Sitting Down?, Page 23

  Travis had gone quiet again, and I was out of words trying my best to prevent an argument with him. The stairs behind me creaked. I knew it was Helen.

  “Manny, you should have told me we had company,” she said, standing there on the stairs in her heavy pink housecoat and fuzzy house shoes.

  “Sorry, dear. I thought you might be asleep.” I lied.

  It was also the first time I had called her dear in ages.

  “Travis, how are you?” Helen said, coming down the last of the stairs.

  Travis stood to give her a hug.

  “I haven’t been here long. Maybe thirty minutes,” he said looking back at me with a shrug.

  “How are things with you in Memphis?” she asked.

  “Fine. Lonely at times, but everything is fine.”

  “I bet, and how’s your Mom?”

  “She’s good.”

  I laughed to myself inside my head finding joy in how Travis opened up and talked to me, but gave Helen the generic “how are you” answers. No one ever says how they really feel anymore.

  “That’s good. Manny tells me he sees her in church quite a bit,” she said taking a seat on the sofa next to me but leaving at least a foot of space between us.

  Travis sat back down in the armchair.

  “I was just telling Mr. Black about my plans to go see Justin tomorrow,” Travis said.

  I really wished he would have refrained from talking about Justin at least for a few more minutes. The truth was there was nothing else to talk about between us. Much like Justin, we barely knew Travis at all. His link to our son was the only bond we had to Travis, so it seemed only fitting for it to be the first thing—and probably the only thing—we’d talk about now that Helen had entered the room.

  “Did you know Justin had his first piano recital when he was in the fifth grade?” she asked out loud, and not particularly to anyone.

  Travis didn’t answer, knowing this was just a prelude to a story Helen was about to tell to fill the time. She cleared her throat and began to stare blankly across the room as she spoke.

  “He hated piano at first. All the other kids were playing trumpet or saxophone, a smaller instrument they could carry in a case on the bus. Justin had wanted to play clarinet, but we couldn’t afford one. We already had a piano, so I made him play that. He was so mad because he couldn’t carry his instrument on the bus for all the other kids to see.

  “Years later he was glad for that because the high school kids teased the musically talented kids with their large black instrument cases in hand. Justin said they called them band nerds or asked if they were selling cosmetics. Cosmetics? Can you believe that? The lady who used to stop by here selling door to door didn’t even carry a case resembling any musical instrument I’d ever seen. So, Justin never got teased on the bus. He said he felt like an undercover musical spy because no one knew he was taking lessons too. He always did enjoy a bit of mystery in his life, didn’t he?”

  “I guess so. He never really talked about that before,” Travis said with the tone of a classroom kid answering a question out loud to which he didn’t know the right answer.

  Helen went quiet with a limp smile on her face, the kind she smiles when she’s lost deep in her thoughts and memories. She was probably also smiling for knowing something about Justin that Travis didn’t know. At least, he led her to believe he didn’t know.

  “Justin played the Winter Waltz at that first recital. He was the best out of twenty-something other students. Most of them were older than him too. He took home the first place medal in his division. It was the first time he had ever won anything.”

  I looked at Travis and could tell he was searching his brain for a sliver of that story from where Justin had already told him. He was probing the boxes in his brain for what the Winter Waltz sounded like. Had Justin ever played it again for him? Did he have that medal at his apartment with Justin’s other things? I saw anger in his face because all of this escaped him. In the confines of his recollections, he couldn’t find this one. I couldn’t find it either. I barely remembered yesterday, much less that many years ago. Justin had probably lost the medal because Helen allowed him to play with it, or another kid had stolen it.

  “Justin was so proud of that medal. It was a heavy gold coin with a piano engraved on it, hanging from a silk yellow ribbon. He complained about how heavy it was around his neck, but he was really bragging. I hung it over a trophy he won later which we placed on the mantel. You remember, don’t you, Manny?”

  I agreed with a nod. The mantel was once cluttered with trophies and framed award certificates. It was hard to keep track of what Justin won them for.

  Helen reached into the pocket of her house coat and pulled out a small flat square box. It was worn at the edges, like an old jewelry box intended for antique costume jewelry. She leaned over and handed it to Travis.

  “I found this today and I want you to have it,” she explained.

  Justin took the box from her, carefully opening the lid to reveal a bed of soft white cotton that glistened like snow. Justin’s medal was lying inside, probably just as shiny as the day he’d won it. Its yellow ribbon was frayed at the edges, but just as bright as a lemon. He picked it up by the ribbon and took it out of the box, letting it dangle in front of us.

  “Thank you so much, Mrs. Black. You don’t know how much this means to me,” he said with honesty.

  “Justin would have wanted you to have it,” Helen said.

  Her voice cracked as if she might tear up, but she held back.

  I wanted to ask to see it. I wanted to hold it in my hand and feel the weight of its value. It was just a child’s piano recital medal, but it might have been worth enough at the pawn shop to put a tank of gas in the car one week or to pay the water bill. If it was in Justin’s old room or in the basement, I can’t believe I never found it before. I couldn’t believe Helen’s generosity and willingness to part with it.

  I refrained from asking Travis to take a look. It was too late. It was his now, but just another reason to hate Helen. I faked a smile for Travis’s appreciation of the gift.

  Mrs. Black

  After destroying the miniature of the White’s house, I turned to go back upstairs. I took a quick look around the basement because I had not been down here in years. It was as if I had discovered a secret room behind a bookcase and was seeing it now for the first time. I couldn’t remember what the basement looked like, nor could I remember it ever looking so clean.

  Manny spent so much time down here so I expected it to be dusty and littered with fast food wrappers and trash. Instead, it was immaculately clean with no trash at all. The storage boxes in the corner were stacked neatly and labeled. For a moment, I thought they were train parts until I paused to read some of the writing on the boxes. A few of the boxes had JUSTIN written on the side of them in neat black letters. I could not remember packing these boxes after Justin died. It was because I didn’t. These were boxes that had accumulated while he was still living at home.

  I walked over to the boxes and lifted the lid off the top one. Inside was a stack of piano sheet music, along with some of his very first books of piano lessons. His name was written in faded blue ink at the top of each piece, some in my handwriting when he was young and some in his own. I managed to lift the heavy box and scoot it to the edge of its stack. Its weight pulled my arms downward as I moved it to the floor so that I could look inside the next box underneath.

  The second box was full of framed awards. They were cheap black diploma frames I’d always found at the dollar store every time Justin had received a certificate for the Straight A Gold Club or for perfect attendance. Each year I had neatly framed his awards and hung them above his bed. When he passed to be in the next grade and received a consecutive award for the same thing the following semester, he’d take down the one from the year prior and hang up the new one in its place. I should have recycled the frames and scrap booked the past awards, but I never did.

  I c
ounted twelve frames for Straight A grades, one for every year of school all the way through high school. He had at least eight perfect attendance awards. He was a healthy child and missed less than two weeks of school all together. The awards from high school became more plentiful as he became involved in other activities like debate team, science club, and the foreign language union. There were two plaques for his wins in track.

  I thought the next box might be full of his recital trophies, but most of those were packed in boxes in his room. I’d kept them displayed on the mantel long after he moved to Memphis, removing them only a few months after his funeral. I don’t know why I took them down, besides them being mementos of when Justin was growing up. For some reason, I felt the need to pack them away like all the other memories I’d filed over the years.

  Instead, the next box was actually a file itself. Credit card account statements, paycheck stubs, and random receipts were all filed by the month and year. Justin had always been meticulous about keeping his life organized, a trait that had since failed both of his parents. I pulled out one of his paycheck records and looked at the date. It was from fifteen years ago when he was working at the wicker store but had not yet been promoted to manager.

  A heap of small receipts in an envelope revealed gas fill-ups for his car and fast food purchases over a few months. I quickly sifted through the small pieces of paper which all looked the same, some printed in purple ink, some in black, and some on yellow carbon copy paper. I don’t know why he kept them, but it was a jarring feeling to know I could put them in order by the date and time and track my son’s life for months— maybe years— from so long ago.

  Amongst the pile was a small envelope. I held it up to the light only to find what looked like another receipt inside. Despite feeling like a prying mother, I opened it. It was a receipt for coffee at a diner from almost twelve years ago. Although it had been protected inside the envelope, it had still yellowed a bit. Nothing in particular would have made it stand out from all the other pieces of proof of payment, except that Justin had written Travis’s name at the top of it and circled the date.

  There was no explanation on the back. There didn’t need to be. Justin had wanted to remember this trip to the diner for some reason and it had involved Travis. The exact reason was tucked away in his head. Had he known Travis then? Maybe this receipt was from the first time they met or their first date. I put it back in the envelope and tucked it into my pocket.

  The file box was lighter than the other boxes I had sifted through. I pushed it to the side and decided to take a peek into one more box. My trip down memory lane had become sad and tired, although I had yet to shed a tear. Upon opening another box, I discovered a treasure chest of multiple items, some of which might not have even belonged to Justin. There was an old wallet with a dollar in it, some keys, small empty gift bags and boxes, cat toys, ink pens, a few birthday cards, a couple of books, and a half burnt candle that had faded over time.

  I shuffled through the contents quickly and found nothing of real importance until I came across a small jewelry sized box at the very bottom. Curious, I retrieved it from the mess and opened it to take a look. I knew what it was as soon as I put my eyes on it. With its shiny engraved surface and frayed yellow ribbon, it was a medal. This was another one of Justin’s awards which I was surprised to find stored away in a box like this with such a hodge-podge of other unimportant items.

  The medal was significant because Justin had won it at his very first piano recital. He had been so proud of it and wore it around the house for days. It eventually found a place on the mantel hanging around the neck of one of his trophies. I had no idea how it ended up down here. I took it out of its box and held it by the ribbon, letting it fall to the length of it like a pendant. The medal dangled and spun at the end of its rope, a shiny golden coin that had filled a child’s heart with such riches. I felt a tear of happiness slide down my cheek because the look on his face back then had filled my heart also.

  I put the medal back in its box and into my pocket with the receipt and restacked the boxes back as they were, neatly on top of each other with the lids closed. I took another last look around the basement hoping to find more forgotten boxes from our past. There was only the hot water heater and the furnace. Going back up the stairs, I turned out the light on the memories of who my son was to me, stored in boxes next to the mini replica of this town we lived in.

  Manny was still on the sofa where I had seen him last, slumped over into a growling nap. I went up the stairs to the bedroom and closed the door. Locking it was just a habit and to keep Manny out, although he had not come upstairs to sleep in the bed in years. I could count on one hand the number of times we had made love since Justin was conceived. It didn’t matter, especially now. I had known for some time that Manny preferred the company of other men, just like his son.

  I wanted to blame Manny for some disease Justin had inherited from him, but the cancer he inherited from me was much worse. Besides, I didn’t believe that homosexuality was hereditary—I still don’t—no matter how much Justin preached it to me. Instead, I chose to convince myself that I never knew. Justin had never told me. It was all an odd dream, the kind you don’t remember five minutes after waking up.

  I felt the same way about Manny, but it was easier to pretend I didn’t know about him because he’d never told me. I’d wasted my whole life married to the man out of convenience really. He kept us fed and clothed and kept the bills paid, by the skin of his teeth sometimes but he managed. I never worked a day in my life, and maybe I was selfish for standing by him all this time but we all reach a point in our life where we stop thinking about the better things. We stop dreaming of tomorrow because we’ve opened our eyes to too many days of the harsh boring reality of the fruitless life we’ve been living. We accept the fact it is not going to get any better.

  The headlights of a car crossed the window. It was someone pulling into the drive. I had no idea who would be visiting us at this hour, or visiting here at all. I hoped it wasn’t carolers. I went to the window to look out and saw Travis getting out of his car and walking up the sidewalk. If Manny did not wake up to go to the door, I was not going to go down and answer it either. I stood at the window, hidden behind the drapes, waiting to see if Travis would be walking back to his car and driving away. He knocked and then knocked again. Then, I heard Manny’s voice and all went quiet outside as he let Travis in.

  I waited there for a minute or two like an eaves-dropping parent, listening for their voices from downstairs to rise through a vent in the ceiling. I thought about getting down on my knees and putting my ear against the floor to try to listen, but it seemed silly. And it was silly for me to think their muffled conversation was intentional so that I couldn’t hear it. I hesitated for a few minutes, unsure if I should go downstairs or not.

  I stood at the door to the bedroom with my hand on the knob, rehearsing a conversation in my head which I knew would never take place. Too much time had passed for me to change my mind and still blame Travis for taking Justin away from me. No matter how many questions I had about the last ten years of Justin’s life away from this home, the answers wouldn’t bring him back. No matter how Travis might answer, I knew his words would not appease me.

  I opened the door slowly, expecting it to creak on its hinges. It didn’t. I slid into the hallway up against the wall like some sort of burglar or spy. Cocking my head to one side, I strained to hear their voices rising up the stairs. I could only make out an occasional word or two, nothing that signified they were talking about Justin. I stuck my hand into my pocket and felt the medal’s box and the piece of receipt paper. I had almost forgotten them there tucked into the warm folds of my housecoat. I took them out and opened the small box. I took out the medal and the cotton it lay on and placed the receipt in the bottom of the box. I covered it with the cotton and laid the medal back inside. Closing the lid, I slipped the box back into my pocket and then descended the stairs.

 
Manny said he thought I was asleep. It was a lie I’d expect from him. Travis could have been here for several hours and Manny would have kept him all to himself if he could. Dying to flirt with him and unable to keep his hands to himself, he’d practically drool over Travis. He’d keep calm just because of who Travis was, but inside his head he’d be committing unthinkable acts. Travis would leave and Manny would rush to the bathroom to lock the door and abuse himself.

  Travis stood up to hug me. It was a distant hug with a light pat on the back, not the presumable warm bear hug he’d given his Mom when greeting her at the door. I was not going to be the first to bring up Justin, despite us really having nothing else to talk about. It was Travis who mentioned him first though when he said he was going to visit Justin’s grave tomorrow. I knew he would ask us to come along, and I wouldn’t go with him anyway. Neither of us would be able to say the things out loud we’d want to say to Justin if we were standing there alone.

  At the top of the stairs, I had decided to give the medal to Travis. I didn’t want it to seem like a last minute Christmas gift I pulled out of a closet or drawer, so I started talking about Justin’s first recital. I liked watching Travis squirm when he’d didn’t know the name of the song Justin played. The Winter Waltz. I made Justin play it for me from time to time all the way through high school, and especially during the holidays. I doubted he ever mentioned it to Travis because I had made him play it for me so much. It was still nice to have a memory of Justin without Travis in it.

  There were many. After all, Justin didn’t meet Travis until after high school and after two years at the community college. But, since he’d been gone from our lives long before his death, those memories had grown harder to find. Letting go of one more of them was not as hard as I thought it would be. I took the box out of my coat pocket and handed it to Travis.