2. Cassidy
I slip through my apartment’s front door, drop my purse on the floor, and almost fall down right beside it. But I will myself to lock the door and draw the dead bolt. I take off my scarf and coat and head straight for the sofa instead, with every intention of collapsing on it.
I’d have made it if my dragging feet hadn’t caught on the edge of a cardboard box, tripping me and sending me tumbling into the coffee table before I bounce off and land on the floor.
Should have collapsed by the door. Might have ended up with fewer bruises.
I lie there, too tired to bother groaning in pain as my eyes flutter closed.
I’ve been on my feet all day working a double at the diner. My blisters have developed blisters. I’m too scared to take off my shoes, because it feels like they’re the only thing keeping my toes from falling off.
If only I could fall asleep right here, but my body’s too sore. I need a warm bath, a cup of tea, and a handful of painkillers before I can even consider climbing into bed.
I sit up, sighing at the momentary relief when I yank out my hair tie and release a wave of chestnut hair down my shoulders. It would have looked amazing, all curly from being in a tight bun all day, but I haven’t washed it in three days, so…yuck.
Forget the bath. I’m going to hose myself down in the shower and crawl into bed.
Let’s hope I don’t wake up in the morning.
I can’t believe I’m only turning twenty-five this year when I feel like I’m about ready to hit a midlife crisis. I’ve been working since I was fifteen. After hours when I was in school, and then double shifts as soon as I graduated.
Mom and Dad had the worst luck with jobs. Bankruptcy, pandemics, down-sizing, outsourcing, economic downturns—they’ve been through them all. I was still in middle school the last time either of them received a steady income.
The Monroes are a cursed bunch.
I lean forward, propping my elbow on the very box I’d almost tripped over as I run my hand over my plump cheeks to work some energy back into my body. I peek through my fingers, sighing when I see what’s scrawled on the side of the box.
“You’re right. It’s time,” I whisper, blinking back a sudden rush of tears.
My voice sounds so broken, I wish I had said nothing at all. I shove the box away from me, but when I stand and turn to head to the bathroom, there’s another box in my way.
They’re everywhere.
Big, brown blocks, impossible to ignore, all with the same angry word scrawled on them in black marker. I’d have packed them away, but there’s barely enough room in my one-bedroom apartment for my stuff, let alone?—
“Fuck this.”
I don’t know where the fury comes from. Maybe it’s leaking out of the boxes I so hastily packed days before the bank threw me out of the only home I ever knew.
My chest closes up at the thought, and I give my head a hard shake, some of the anger dissolving.
I don’t even feel the pain in my feet as I head into the tiny kitchen and make myself a cup of tea. But I don’t take it into the bathroom.
Setting down my cup on the coffee table, I ease myself with a grimace to the floor beside the box that tried to kill me and stab it with a kitchen knife. At the top, by the tape holding it closed—I’m not a psycho, I’m just tired.
Tired of pretending I should keep all this stuff when the person they belong to doesn’t need them anymore. But there might still be something worth salvaging inside these boxes. That’s why this stuff didn’t go straight to the dumpster when I moved.
I rip off the tape, and then lean back to take a sip of tea to prepare myself. My eyes moving over the word MOM scrawled in black marker on the side of the box.
Dragging it closer, I open the flaps and peek inside. A puff of perfume hits my nose, and I panic. Has a bottle broken? I can’t remember how I packaged them, if I even bothered to wrap them up first.
Mom had two jewelry boxes, one for the expensive stuff, and this one. I go through the plastic beads and plated metal necklaces, my face twitching at the smell of old, corroded metal.
Junk.
She’d sold all the good shit years ago.
I dump the cheap jewelry into a pile to my left, adding the old perfume bottle to it. The newer one is a fresh, flowery scent I quite like, so I put it on the coffee table. No need to waste. It’s not like I can afford perfume.
Dried up, used up, crumbly, sticky cosmetics. They go on the pile with the cheap jewelry, along with a cracked hand mirror, a plastic comb, and a tin of ancient hair spray.
There are a few flat objects at the bottom of the box. The first is a small photo album. I glance at it, but don’t open it. Her old wedding photos will just make me cry, and I’ve shed enough tears for three lifetimes.
Crying won’t bring her back.
I take out a small binder, rubbing my thumb over the black imitation-leather cover with Rebecca embossed on the front in gold. I haven’t seen this in ages. Years ago, she’d carry it with her in her purse, sometimes leaving it on her nightstand or dresser. But that was back when she was still married to Dad.
I don’t remember putting it into this box. Then again, I don’t remember packing any of these boxes. I was in tears, a little drunk, still in disbelief that my mother was gone.
Pulling open the magnetic lock on the side, I flip idly through the pages. The contacts section has a few addresses and phone numbers, all in my mother’s neat, round handwriting.
The entries have all faded with age.
I only recognize a handful of names—my grandparents, two of my mom’s friends, the guy who used to do repairs at our house. A lot of the ones I don’t recognize have no context. Just names and contact numbers. Some of them only have an initial and last name.
My mom came from money. Some of these names sound like they could be high society—Hawthorne, Remington, Astor.
There’s a handful of business cards in here, a coupon for a dry cleaner that expired five years ago, and lots of empty cardboard dividers with scratched-out labels
More junk.
I keep all my notes and contacts on my phone, just like Mom did. I doubt she’s even touched this thing in the last five years.
Is that why she left it behind?
I shove away the insidious thought. It’s been playing on repeat in my head since the day Detective Lewis announced that my mother’s missing person case was no longer an active investigation.
Missing person, because they claimed there was no evidence of foul play. They claimed she ran away.
Mom would never do that to me.
She fucking loved me.
I take a few sips of tea before moving on.
By the time I’m on the last box, I can barely keep my eyes open. I’ve sorted everything into three trash boxes and a box of keepsakes, and the unopened box that I left for last because I know what’s inside and I’m dreading it.
Purses. An entire box of purses.
Mom loved them. Well, she loved a lot of fancy things. Fur coats, designer shoes and purses, expensive jewelry. She’d buy them, then have to sell them a few months later to pay the bills when the Monroe family curse struck again.
She always refused to sell her purses, though. Even when the pantry was bare and our bills had big red OVERDUE stamps all over them.
I indulged her because they made her happy.
And making her happy made me happy.
I puff out a breath, stirring a few strands of greasy hair. I’m in half a mind to just close this box up again, but there might be a Gucci or two in here that I could pawn for a few bucks.
There’s a musty smell when I open the box, but I soldier through and start taking out one purse after the other. I was right—I find a Fendi, a Balenciaga, and a Prada inside.
I’m halfway through when my fingers brush against something odd. I pluck it out, staring fuzzily at it for a moment before realizing what it is.
It’s her old purse organizer. She bought it a few years ago, so she didn’t have to spend ten minutes transferring everything from one purse to another. She liked it so much she bought another three. This smaller one was for her fancier purses, because the first one she bought was too big for those small, sparkly little bags.
She hasn’t used one of those in years, though. The Monroe curse had struck again eight months ago when the insurance company where Rebecca’d landed a job as a receptionist retrenched her.
The purse organizer feels empty, and assuming it is, I toss it toward the trash box. It misses, of course, because I’m tired as hell and have zero hand-eye coordination on a good day. I watch a cracked lipstick cover, two pennies, and a piece of paper fall out on the floor.
I don’t even have the energy to curse.
I don’t even bother to turn off the lights.
Crawling on all fours, I drag myself onto the couch. It groans under my weight, but I ignore it, already drifting off to sleep.
My back is still aching from my night spent on the couch. Murphy’s Law, it’s one of the few times I haven’t tossed and turned, or gotten up five times to pee. I’d be mad, but it’s a relief knowing I’ve finally gotten a solid few hours of sleep.
Sloshing milk into my bowl of cereal, I take my coffee cup and bowl into the living room, staring at the mess I made last night with a sinking feeling growing inside me.
The sorting’s been done, but now I have to force myself to throw away the junk, and find a place to store the things I want to keep.
I really wish I could afford a storage unit, but that will have to wait.
Setting my breakfast things down on the coffee table, I take a sip of my coffee and then go to pick up the trash that fell out of my mom’s purse organizer. Sunday mornings at the diner are busy, but I’ve tried to work three shifts in a row before and it’s never been worth it. No one tips a tired, cranky waitress. I’m due in for the lunch shift, but that gives me a few hours to sort this stuff out.
I thought the piece of paper was just scrap, but it has a row of holes on one side, torn through like she ripped it out of the Filofax.
“What the…?” I unfold it and stare at my mother’s neat handwriting.