Chapter 28: Mom in a box

AN: Thanks to Jim for editing!

I stared at the five items spread out over the coffee table, which Luke had removed from the box for me. I felt too afraid to touch them, which I understood was ridiculous, but true nonetheless. I hadn't had any idea what to expect when I opened my birthday present, but I could honestly say that I hadn't imagined what I did get. I guess in part, I'd thought it would be another letter, and maybe an item that had meant a lot to my mother. But, there was no letter.

In that wrapped shoebox, my mother had neatly placed a dark, leather binder that had been a tight fit. The second, and easiest item to miss, had been a long, bluebird feather. Then, there was another book. It was smaller, and about the size of my hand with a hard cover and a faded picture of a unicorn on the front. The fourth item was a small, square CD case. I'd almost laughed out loud when I saw it because I recognized it to be mine. I wondered if she'd finally returned all the explicit music she'd confiscated from me over the years. And the fifth item was a cardboard jewelry box, scotch tape sealing it closed.

"Do you wanna be alone?" Luke asked quietly, and I turned my attention towards him, shaking my head.

"No, that's okay; I said I'd open it with you, remember?"

"Yeah, but..."

"It's okay, Luke," I insisted. "I just didn't know what to expect, that's all."

"Alright--so do you wanna look through some of this stuff?" he asked, and I nodded, before gesturing towards the binder.

"What about that?" I asked. Luke looked at me, probably waiting for me to reach for the binder, but when I just sat there staring at it expectantly, he picked it up and inspected it. I frowned at the confused expression that came over his features.

"It's locked," he announced, holding it out for me.

I hesitated for another moment before I reached out and took it from him, my hands exploring the smooth texture of the color, and suddenly I felt a little resentment about the fact that Luke had taken them out of the box, even if I'd asked him to. The last person who had touched these items had been my mother, and for a moment it almost felt as if I'd missed out on a chance of getting a little closer to her by having Luke touch the items first. That was ridiculous, too. I made the thought go away and focused on the lock, which was preventing me from seeing the contents of the book.

"Why is it locked?" I asked blankly, as if Luke was actually supposed to have the answer.

"I don't know; maybe there's a key or something we missed."

Luke lifted the shoebox from the floor to check, but I was already placing the binder back on the table so I could lift up the feather, wondering what it was all about. It had hardly tickled the tips of my fingers before I was placing it back on the table and reaching for the second book.

"No key in here," Luke announced, sounding disappointed as he leaned towards me, watching as I flipped open the second book to a random page, tilting my head when I set eyes on a sloppy drawing that looked sort of like a dog, and noticed the handwriting that I'd expect a second grader to have on the opposite page. 'I'm going to ask Mom if I can have a dog for my birthday. I like Sara Linki's dog. Sara's dog hates her.'

Luke must have read it, because he softly chuckled beside me, and even I found myself smiling as I continued to flip through the pages, each one marked with messy artwork and handwriting, all expressing wishes.

"Was this her diary?" Luke asked. I shook my head.

"Her wish list," I said quietly. "She used to make me keep these." I ruefully laughed to myself. "Every year before Christmas it would go missing."

Luke smiled at me and I sniffed, wondering when my nose had started running. I looked back down at the book and flipped through some more pages, looking at just pictures for now. It seemed her coloring skills improved as I neared the end of the book. I had no idea where my own little wish lists were now, so the fact that my mom had saved hers for me... I was just really happy that she'd saved it for me. It was like having all of the wishes she'd made on paper, things I never would have known about her otherwise, like the fact that she wanted to play the piano. I found that one incredibly comical, mostly because my mother had always claimed to be bored out of her mind each time we had to just listen to someone play a piano--or maybe that was just the organ at Grandma Alice's church.

I missed my mom.

The last page I turned to placed knots in my stomach. It was towards the end of the book, where her drawings and her handwriting had improved, and the drawing was the only thing it could be--a girl with yellow hair in a wedding dress, veil and all. On the other side, the same words were written over and over again. Mrs. Edward Soarda. I swallowed hard, a lot of the resentment I'd had for Eddie when I'd first arrived coming back to haunt me; those feelings I'd had when I believed that he'd run out on me and my mom. I, of all people, knew that it would be completely unfair to ask him to be someone who he wasn't, but the feeling was still there, especially looking at that picture. It was one of my mom's dreams, one that would never come true. It was one that couldn't have come true, and I found myself wondering just how deep her feelings for my biological father had gone. She'd never married. She'd hardly ever dated. It hadn't really occurred to me before that Eddie could have been the reason for that. It was a difficult concept for me to process. I'd spent a lifetime away from him. My mother had spent half of her life with him. That was a lot, and again, I found myself distraught over the fact that she hadn't told me.

"Are you okay?" Luke asked me, and I sniffed again, realizing that my face felt wet. But, if I'd been crying, I hadn't realized it, even as I wiped the moisture away, deciding that I wasn't crying at the present moment. I nodded to his question, closing the book. I didn't place it back on the coffee table, though. I wanted to keep it close, and it was small enough to fit into my pocket, which is exactly where it went for the time being as I sat back on the couch, and stared at the remaining items on the table. "Maybe you should take a break... or tell Eddie you opened it," Luke suggested. He looked worried. I imagined that was because I looked terrible. But I forced a smile in his direction.

"What's in the box?" I asked, surprised to find that my voice sounded raspy.

Luke looked at me for a second, and then reached for the jewelry box. But, he didn't open it.

"I think you should open it," he insisted, holding it out for me.

I took the jewelry box, and Luke watched as I peeled the tape away before opening it up. Only one item really caught my eye, and before I knew it I was removing a large, gold wedding band and carelessly passing the box back to Luke as I held it in my hand and studied it carefully.

"Hey, there is a key," Luke said happily as he removed a small one connected to a chain from the jewelry box, emptying it. But I wasn't paying attention, I was too busy holding the ring. "Rory?"

"It was my Grandpa John's wedding ring," I said excitedly, holding it out for Luke as if he'd asked to see it. "I didn't know him; I mean, my mom hardly knew him because he died when she was young. My grandma gave her this ring and she loved it..."

"It's huge," Luke commented, slipping his index finger through the band and finding that there was plenty of room to spare. It made me laugh.

"My grandma always told stories about my grandpa having freakishly large fingers," I said. "You can't really tell in his pictures, but it's true. My mom never wore it. She said she was going to save it, and give it to someone special because her mom chose it for her dad, but... my mom never even dated," I concluded, feeling depressed again.

"But she still gave it to someone special," Luke replied after a moment as he removed the key from the chain it was on, and then replaced it with the ring before he leaned forward to latch it around my neck. "You should wear it." I didn't resist. All I could do was nod, grateful that Luke was currently with me.

"Thanks," I said quietly, and he smiled, giving my shoulder a reassuring squeeze before he held up the key and passed me the leather binder again.

"Are you ready to open it up?" he asked. "Or do you want to see what this is?" He held up the CD case and I rolled my eyes, suddenly smiling again.

"I already know what's in there," I replied.

"You do?" Luke sounded surprised.

"Yeah. Every time I bought a CD that my mom couldn't stand--like, you know, because of language and all that--she'd take it if she heard me listening. It was one of the few things we ever fought about."

"So she's giving them back now?" Luke responded, sounding mildly amused.

"She always did say I'd get them back over her dead body," I remarked, finding the situation more ironic than sad. "My mom could have a morbid sense of humor," I explained, when Luke looked at me funny. I turned my attention to the locked binder then, even while Luke continued to study the CD case curiously, and I found that the key in the jewelry box had been a perfect fit. The lock snapped right open. When it did, Luke's attention was on the binder just in time to catch three pictures that slipped out of it. We both looked. The first, was of me as baby. It was one of those unfortunate bathtub pictures. I managed to glare at Luke before he could comment. The second picture was one of my mom, my grandmother and me, probably taken around the time that I was three, at Christmas. The third, was my mom and Grandma Alice, standing just outside the front door of my grandmother's house. It wasn't entirely obvious, but my mom was pregnant, just enough to show. I spotted it right away. What I also spotted, was the familiar macaw on my mom's shoulder.

"Oh my god, it's Mr. Washington," I said aloud, and Luke regarded me inquisitively. I pointed to the bird in the picture and then lifted the bird feather that had been in the box. "He's, like, the only pet we ever had. He died when I was five and my mom buried him in a flower box..." I suddenly put two and two together, made a disgusted face, and sent Luke laughing when I dropped the feather.

"Oh, come on," Luke insisted, lifting up the feather. "She wanted to remember him."

"She plucked Mr. Washington."

"You don't know that he was already dead when she did it," Luke insisted.

"Does that make it better?" I responded, but found myself smiling, anyway. I even took the feather again. "I told you she could be morbid."

"She seems... sentimental," Luke replied quietly, and I fell silent for a moment, offered him a genuine smile and nodded, before turning my attention back to the binder on my lap. I only opened the cover before my hand was on the first page, my eyes trained on the handwriting that filled it. It was the same writing that had been on the shiny red paper before I'd opened my present.

I couldn't read it, my vision was suddenly too blurry for that. But, what I did do, was turn the page, only to find more of my mom's handwriting. And it was on the next, and the next, and the next, along with a pressed four-leaf clover.

"This is so much better than a letter." I didn't even realize I'd said it out loud until Luke smiled at me.

"She sent her diary," he said, sounding like he approved. But, I suddenly found myself frowning as I turned back to the first page and looked at the date.

"She started this a week after we found out," I said quietly.

"What do you mean?"

"When they told us... this was a week after they told us she was going to die." I suddenly closed the binder and shook my head. "I can't just read her diary."

"Rory..."

"It's private," I stated. "She wouldn't want me to."

"If that was true she wouldn't have given it to you," Luke pointed out. "Rory... don't do that to yourself, okay? If she started writing after she found out what was going to happen--well, then don't you think she did it for you?"

I stared down at the journal, knowing that he was right. I guess this was just... hard. All of it was hard. And overwhelming. I felt like I should be sitting down and reading it all immediately, if that's what my mom had left it for. And her wish list. I wanted to read all of that, too, study every picture until I could see each and every one of their details with my eyes closed. But, I also wanted to take my time. Besides my memories, this was the last I had of my mother. I wanted it all to last. I wanted to learn something new about her every day, just like I had when she was alive. I knew I didn't have the patience for that... but I just wanted her to last.

I opened the diary again. I didn't start reading exactly, I just slowly flipped through the pages. There was more to see that just wasn't written, like more four-leaf clovers, pressed to the pages. My mom had always been really good at finding them at my grandma's house. When I couldn't, she'd give me hers and say that I could share her luck. And there were flowers. One was a rose that I remembered giving her, and there were some bookmarks with poetry she liked on them, a silver dollar. I cringed at the lizard's tail, but smiled anyway.

As I took my time to look, I felt Luke squeeze my shoulder as he unzipped the CD case to look through my music, and I was aware of him getting up, moving around the room, but I wasn't really paying attention. I was too busy looking through the book. I hadn't even reached the halfway point when I found a folded-up piece of yellow notebook paper and opened it up, only to find my own handwriting on it.

Good morning beautiful.

I remembered writing it, too. I'd written it just before my mom had gotten really sick. She'd already lost a lot of weight. Her skin was pale, her cheeks seemed hollow, and the night before I'd found her crying in front of her mirror because she thought she was, in her words, hideous. I'd made her breakfast in bed the next morning and left the note. She'd cried.

And I was about to.

I folded up the piece of paper, feeling touched that my mom had kept it when I'd only written it and left it for her without a second thought. I'd known it would mean something to her, but...

I flinched as the speakers wired around the room suddenly crackled. I looked over at Luke, who was over by the CD player with the case. Obviously, whatever he'd been playing before had been blaring, because that's exactly what the familiar voice--the one I hadn't imagined ever hearing again--did, in a sing-song voice through the speakers. It blared.

"Rory...."

"Rory! I'm waiting, say goodbye to your friends! You can see them tomorrow."

I looked up the stairs to where my mom's blonde head was sticking out the door to our apartment, and groaned. She had her hair up in a high pony tail. The only time she ever wore it like that was when she was cleaning.

"Five more minutes!" I insisted. "It's only six thirty!"

"It's Thursday," she replied. "Family night. You promised when I let you go to that sleepover last week." She paused and looked past me, to where, like me, Nathan was sitting on the stairs, and Jason was on his bike. "Hi, boys."

"Hi, Gina," they chorused. Nathan gave her a little wave and blushed. I elbowed him and gave him a dirty look. At thirteen, as Jason and most of my other friends had started to notice girls, Nathan had noticed my mother. I, of course, was disgusted about this.

"Five more minutes," I pleaded.

"Five seconds," my mother responded, raising a perfectly sharp eyebrow at me. I released an exasperated breath and did my very best to look completely put out by this. She just smiled, waved to my friends, and went back inside.

I sighed and stood up, doing the lazy-handshake thing with Nathan and Jason. They didn't even ask me why I had to go in early, or wonder what family night was. They already knew that at least one day a week I went in early to spend some extra time with my mom. And, I really didn't complain about it very much, either. Only on book night.

In all fairness, book night only happened about once a month, but I'd always figured that there were better things we could have done with our time. At thirteen, sitting still for three hours in a quiet living room while my mom and I took turns reading whatever she'd picked up from the library that week wasn't my idea of a good time. Plus, she'd make me wear my glasses.

She was waiting for me with my glasses on the long, blue sofa in our small, yet suitable living room when I made my way upstairs. But I didn't go to sit with her right away. First, I went directly to the kitchen to pour us both a glass of juice. "Thank you," my mom said, smiling at me when I handed her a glass. I just groaned when she handed me my glasses and grudgingly put them on. Then, I tilted my head to better see the book that was in her hands. By the looks of the illustration, it was a romance novel. I was also pretty sure that the title had the word desire in it.

"Mom. No."

"What?" she asked innocently, turning to a bookmarked page almost halfway through the book.

"Is it even legal to make me read that?"

"Probably not," she said reasonably. "But I started it last night and I want to know what happens."

"On your own time, lady," I informed her as I took the book and placed it aside. She laughed and sipped her juice.

"Okay, but that means you have to pick. And, I forgot to stop at the library after work, so you're going to have to pick something we have here."

"But we've read everything here a hundred times," I objected, and then put on my best grin. "Let's watch a movie instead."

My mother's eyes narrowed and part of her top lips curled up as she flashed me a look that clearly said I was being too stubborn for her tastes. But, as always it faded quickly and she suddenly smiled as she passed me her juice glass and stood up.

"I know what we can read," she announced. I remained where I was on the sofa, watching skeptically as she went to the closet by the front door. I sat up a little when I saw her fish out a box from the bottom.

"Weren't you supposed to donate that stuff to Goodwill?" I asked.

"I changed my mind about this stuff," she replied, bringing the box to the sofa where she opened it between us and I groaned again when I saw what was in it.

"Mom, those are baby books."

"Your baby books. Come on, it'll be fun to read a few of these."

"Bunny does his ABC's?"

Obviously, she was trying to torture me. Then again, when I was thirteen, I was under the impression that everything my mom did was meant to torture me.

"Let's read the Fox and the Hound," she insisted. "It used to be your favorite."

"I don't even remember that one," I insisted.

"That's exactly why we should read it," she insisted. "Besides, some day when you have kids to give these to you'll thank me for making sure you remember the stories."

I inwardly cringed at that. For a while now, I'd been coming to the conclusion that having children wasn't necessarily going to be a part of my future. Every time my mom made a comment like that I was reminded of how I thought it was going to break her heart. It was probably the guilt alone that had me reaching for the book when she held it out for me.

"You start," she insisted. "And I'll tell you what, if we can read three of these, we'll watch a movie. My choice."

"Your choice?" I asked incredulously.

"I think I should get something for cutting book night short," she replied, matter-of-factly.

"Fine," I relented. "But nothing that makes you cry!"

"You mean that makes you cry?" she teased.

"Mom!"

"Okay, deal," she agreed. We shook on it, and I started to read.

"Rory... it's family time..."

The voice coming through the speakers--the laughter that followed--my mother's laughter, was suddenly interrupted.

"I'm sorry, Rory," Luke said quickly, stopping it as he looked over at me. "I didn't know..."

I was shaking. And, I'd stood up at some point. Couldn't remember doing it. Or dropping my mom's diary. I looked down at it for a long moment, feeling like I'd just broken a family heirloom, and picked it up carefully as I slowly took my seat again.

"Rory?"

I met Luke's eyes. He looked like he felt guilty about something, but it took me another whole minute to notice before I cleared my throat and gave a small shrug.

"It's okay," I insisted. "Play it."

Luke studied me for a moment before a small smile curled his lips and he reached for the CD player, this time turning it down. It was still loud, but not so much that it was uncomfortable as I heard my mom's laughter again, a soft sound that sent a chill up my spine.

"Who says I can't read to my grandchildren?" she mused. "And I know what you're thinking, Rory, but anything's possible; and, I have one of your old favorites right here..." I could hear pages turning as Luke took a seat next to me and his hand rested on my shoulder.

"Do you want me to leave you alone?" he asked quietly.

I shook my head and found myself leaning into him somewhat as I took in the sound of my mom's voice. It was a soft sound, but a deeper soft sound. She'd never really had one of those girly voices. In fact, now that I thought about it, she was a little nasal, but I'd always think that her voice was beautiful. More so now, because I'd never planned on hearing it again.

"... the fox and the hound..." And then she started to read.

She could have been reading the Declaration of Independence, or reciting the days of the week for all I cared. It was my mom's voice, and just listening to it was... something. I had her voice. If I wanted to, I could always listen to her voice, whenever I wanted from now on. And, when Luke placed the CD case on my lap and I looked down and saw that there were seven other CD's, which likely had more of her voice on them, I decided that it was the best fucking birthday present she'd ever given to me.

As Luke and I just sat there, listening, I felt that the story was coming to an end far too soon. I just wanted her to keep talking, just for a little longer. I released an audible sigh of relief when I found that it wasn't over as my mom went on to read a second story. Peter Pan, I think it was. She did her really lousy Captain Hook voice. It made Luke laugh. I managed something akin to a smile in his direction before I stared straight ahead and listened some more.

Jase was there. I don't know when he had come downstairs, but when he sat next to me and passed over a box of Kleenex, I discovered that I really did need to blow my nose. I did so as quietly as possible. I also found that when Jase leaned back and listened with us, I wasn't at all bothered by it. My mom was talking.