“What?”
She sat on the edge of a set of Rubbermaid drawers and unscrewed the lid to the container, dumping the contents into her pudgy open palm. “Look!”
Costume jewelry and rings with synthetic stones she had bought on QVC filled her hand and spilled over onto a pile of magazines stacked on the rug. She looked like a pirate sifting through gold doubloons. “This one I got last year, this one I got when MawMaw died, and this one I got just last month.”
She held up a ring embedded with tourmaline chips, and Jarrod took it from her.
“What is that, green bottle glass?”
She screamed and snatched it away. “No!”
“Who keeps their jewelry in an old baby powder container?”
“I do! What if someone broke in and robbed us?”
A vein throbbed on Jarrod’s forehead. “They’d never find it in this landfill!”
“That’s right! Because everything precious is hidden in something unexpected! The first thing burglars would look for is a jewelry box!”
Jarrod willed himself to calm down. Then, as though a switch had been flipped, he shrugged and walked to the door, looking wasted, thin, and as dirty as his son.
“I gotta go.”
He cast a rueful look at Logan, who stood there in gray long johns, holding a dog-eared issue of Spider-Man. On the cover, against a yellow sky, Spider-Man traversed between buildings, his right foot forward. The comic was ripped in the corner. The superhero was missing his non-web shooting hand that should have been in the upper right-hand corner.
As Jarrod went out the front door, he let the screen door bang.
Ramona dumped her jewelry back into the powder canister.
“Logan, go latch that.”
Dutifully, Logan did as told. Then, he had an idea. “Mom, you know how MawMaw’s room is the only place in the house that’s clean?”
Ramona scoffed. “I don’t keep a dirty house.”
Logan took her by the hand. “Come with me.”
The door to MawMaw’s room creaked on its hinges when he pushed it inward. The room smelled of musty flowers and Vicks VapoRub, which Ramona had slathered on her mother’s chest, arms, and legs when she complained of everything from congestion to sore muscles. Of course, it never helped the cancer. It was her daughter’s ministrations that made MawMaw feel better. Her painkillers were kept in a side table, and a fresh pitcher of ice water was replenished three times a day. Logan could still picture her propped up in bed with four pillows beneath her head and back, a scarf on her grayed head, bundled in her robe, even though she was beneath two blankets. The window stood open, and a breeze blew the sheer curtains embroidered with sunflowers at the hemline. She didn’t read or watch TV. Instead, she played solitaire with an old deck of cards adorned with Chester the Cheetah, the big-faced cat in sunglasses, a promotional item given away at the grocery store at a time when Ramona was going through a family-size bag of Cheetos every day.
When Logan would visit MawMaw in her room, he’d sit at the end of the bed, and she’d have him guess whether the card she was holding was red or black. Once, he got four out of five correct. They had all been black. One time he told her he thought, instead of the Kings, Queens, and Jacks, the artist should have put Chester’s face on the royalty, and MawMaw threw her head back into the pillows and laughed ‘til she gasped for air. She was missing teeth in the back of her mouth instead of the front, like many old people with infrequent dental care, and he wondered if she’d swallowed them. After she died, Logan went into her room, took a jar of the mentholated rub from her side table drawer, and looked in her dresser. Weeks after the funeral, all of her belongings were still neatly folded in the drawers, the right amount in each one, none on them overfilled. Logan touched the nylons and garter belts, girdles and bras she must have worn years ago. There was even a box of maxi pads that looked like diapers,
She sat on the edge of a set of Rubbermaid drawers and unscrewed the lid to the container, dumping the contents into her pudgy open palm. “Look!”
Costume jewelry and rings with synthetic stones she had bought on QVC filled her hand and spilled over onto a pile of magazines stacked on the rug. She looked like a pirate sifting through gold doubloons. “This one I got last year, this one I got when MawMaw died, and this one I got just last month.”
She held up a ring embedded with tourmaline chips, and Jarrod took it from her.
“What is that, green bottle glass?”
She screamed and snatched it away. “No!”
“Who keeps their jewelry in an old baby powder container?”
“I do! What if someone broke in and robbed us?”
A vein throbbed on Jarrod’s forehead. “They’d never find it in this landfill!”
“That’s right! Because everything precious is hidden in something unexpected! The first thing burglars would look for is a jewelry box!”
Jarrod willed himself to calm down. Then, as though a switch had been flipped, he shrugged and walked to the door, looking wasted, thin, and as dirty as his son.
“I gotta go.”
He cast a rueful look at Logan, who stood there in gray long johns, holding a dog-eared issue of Spider-Man. On the cover, against a yellow sky, Spider-Man traversed between buildings, his right foot forward. The comic was ripped in the corner. The superhero was missing his non-web shooting hand that should have been in the upper right-hand corner.
As Jarrod went out the front door, he let the screen door bang.
Ramona dumped her jewelry back into the powder canister.
“Logan, go latch that.”
Dutifully, Logan did as told. Then, he had an idea. “Mom, you know how MawMaw’s room is the only place in the house that’s clean?”
Ramona scoffed. “I don’t keep a dirty house.”
Logan took her by the hand. “Come with me.”
The door to MawMaw’s room creaked on its hinges when he pushed it inward. The room smelled of musty flowers and Vicks VapoRub, which Ramona had slathered on her mother’s chest, arms, and legs when she complained of everything from congestion to sore muscles. Of course, it never helped the cancer. It was her daughter’s ministrations that made MawMaw feel better. Her painkillers were kept in a side table, and a fresh pitcher of ice water was replenished three times a day. Logan could still picture her propped up in bed with four pillows beneath her head and back, a scarf on her grayed head, bundled in her robe, even though she was beneath two blankets. The window stood open, and a breeze blew the sheer curtains embroidered with sunflowers at the hemline. She didn’t read or watch TV. Instead, she played solitaire with an old deck of cards adorned with Chester the Cheetah, the big-faced cat in sunglasses, a promotional item given away at the grocery store at a time when Ramona was going through a family-size bag of Cheetos every day.
When Logan would visit MawMaw in her room, he’d sit at the end of the bed, and she’d have him guess whether the card she was holding was red or black. Once, he got four out of five correct. They had all been black. One time he told her he thought, instead of the Kings, Queens, and Jacks, the artist should have put Chester’s face on the royalty, and MawMaw threw her head back into the pillows and laughed ‘til she gasped for air. She was missing teeth in the back of her mouth instead of the front, like many old people with infrequent dental care, and he wondered if she’d swallowed them. After she died, Logan went into her room, took a jar of the mentholated rub from her side table drawer, and looked in her dresser. Weeks after the funeral, all of her belongings were still neatly folded in the drawers, the right amount in each one, none on them overfilled. Logan touched the nylons and garter belts, girdles and bras she must have worn years ago. There was even a box of maxi pads that looked like diapers,
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