Cleaning House

Months after the accident, we’re clearing out your house.

It’s a daunting task for such a small place. Books everywhere. Endless vinyl but no turntable. Shelves of souvenirs from the same places as the stickers on the back of your charred and crumpled Jetta. You and Jake went everywhere together.

“Where’s the bathroom?” Boon says.

“How should I know?” I let empty boxes fall to the floor.

Somehow the kitchen smells like fresh bread. The cabinets are crammed with mismatched service for an army. Mikasa. Corelle. Generic Christmas plates. A not-quite-repaired teacup that should have been tossed: wabi-sabi gone awry, looking for beauty in the broken. A twinge of panic when I see the photo of me and Boon tacked to your fridge with a heart magnet over Boon’s face. I hold my breath, but he says nothing about it, puts it in a box with other mementos.

He does scoff at your photo of the Obamas. Remember what you said before you moved out here? I just want you to be happy. Find someone who looks at you the way Barack looks at Michelle. I eloped with Boon anyway. It didn’t feel like taking sides.

“Neither of you got your mother’s OCD, that’s for sure,” Boon says. I say nothing and squeeze past him to get to the bedroom. A screen door slaps as he heads out to the garage. “Maybe they got a mint Corvette under a tarp,” he says.

The bed’s barely made. Boxers and a tattered Cure t-shirt that missed the hamper. Jesus, you still have a VCR? A cache of old anniversary cards inside a night table drawer. An unmarked VHS tape. I pop it in the machine, sit on the edge of the bed. The TV flickers, lines stretch and crawl up the screen as you beam in from an earlier time and place, naked. I forgot about the birthmark on your left breast. Jake’s voice comes from the other side of the camera. They’re his legs you’re leaning on.

“You sure about this?” he says. You look playful as you consider the answer.

“Yes,” you say, and you begin.

A moment later you lift your head and affect a porn star voice. The two of you laugh and the camera shakes. He jokes about being able to see over his gut. He’s not fat, just doughy. You both are.

Everything in me says to turn it off, but I can’t. You’re as alive and unguarded as anyone can be.

The screen blinks and you’ve switched places. He’s making noises between your thighs and the camera shakes again. Laughing turns to sweetness. Only now do I feel like an intruder. The scene tilts as the camera slips. You whisper that you need to put it down.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Boon says from the doorway. I fumble the remote, wipe my eyes on my sleeve. He tries and fails to eject the tape, yanks the dusty power cord from the wall and storms out.

I pack the last boxes, my heart pounding, ears burning. Boon’s saying something at the front door. But all I hear is your laughter.