hidden away in the yellow box with silver teeth

Plastic wrap.  Humming quietly to myself, I stand up on the balls of my feet and pull the yellow box with silver teeth down from the cupboard. It’s the good kind of plastic wrap.  The blue kind that clings to what you’re wrapping but not to itself.  It costs a little more at the store so I always buy the cheaper kind.  I haven’t used this kind since I was young, but it just now occurs to me that I haven’t. 

I am frozen, there in the kitchen, in a too big college t-shirt that doesn’t belong to me and no pants.  I am back in my childhood home.  There is a herd of deer, trailing lightly though the freshly fallen snow outside the window.  The box of plastic wrap is still in my hands.  My sister is standing at the sink, washing Thanksgiving dinner off the good plates and singing to herself.  She always used to sing to herself when she did the dishes, which meant that every night we would hear the medley of her soft, but flat notes to the cadence of clattering pots and pans.  I would wrap up the food and wipe the grease from the table.  Wipe down the table, clean the counter and intentionally forget to clean the stove.  I always hated cleaning the stove.  I would get in trouble, of course, for not doing it, but it was better than having to feel the thick films of grease that had solidified and could only be removed by digging my nails into it from beneath a flimsy piece of paper towel that almost always broke, forcing chunks of coagulated oil and fat under the tips of my nails.  Yes, I would much rather be scolded.

I place the yellow box with the silver teeth down on the counter and wander into the living room.  I’ll put the food away later.

I feel a bit strange, as if I’m high, or floating. Although, if I were a ghost, this is how I imagine I would feel.  Either were possible, really.  

They are all sitting in front of the TV.  Dad, dozing off in his faded corduroy recliner.  My brother on the floor, absentmindedly fiddling with a Spiderman toy that had clearly seen a lot of playtime, his eyes fixed on the screen.   Mom slouches against the couch, her feet resting on the ottoman that made your legs itch and left scars on my legs from where the wire reached out and made victims of all its visitors.  Snowflake lay in her lap, having the spot between her ears scratched.  God, I forgot how much I hated that dog.  None of them moved in reaction to my presence in the room, as if I weren’t there at all, watching them. 

It has been years since I stood in this spot.  I run my fingers along the ivory keys I grew up playing, still smooth to the touch.  I try to remember if I played at all those last few months in the house but I can’t recall.

I glance out the big bay window in the living room.  The glow from the Christmas lights I put up every year illuminates the still falling snow.  It had snowed on the night I remember to this day as the first of my last nights in that house.  On that night, I stood in the same spot I’m standing now, my fists clenched by my sides and stared out that same window, at the red and blue lights that came flashing down the drive, illuminating the falling snow.  

The strains of my favorite movie waft dreamily to my ears, as if from a great distance.  I used to love this moment, when I was in it before.  I remember it both vague and clear, like you remember many days that were like it, but there were too many like them to remember exactly.  I used to love the holidays back then.  Every year, we would watch the same movies in succession, just as Thanksgiving Day ended and the tree was decorated.  I was always a little more excited than the rest of them for this time of year.  I was eleven when my parents caught me climbing on the roof to hang the strings of lights so our house could look like the other neighborhood houses.  

“Hey, do you need help?”  He is hugging me from behind.  The house and its inhabitants disappear from around me, dissipating like morning fog at sunrise, and all that remains is the yellow box with the silver teeth in my hands.  There is no snow, it is only the beginning of autumn in the city.  The oversized shirt I’m wearing smells like him.  I breathe it in and I am back in September 2019, barefoot in his kitchen.

“No, I’ve got it.  I was just finding the plastic wrap.”

“Here, let me help you.  I’ll do the dishes if you put everything away.”

I smile softly.  I always put everything away.