3. Three
I yawn into my hand as the coffee drips slowly into the pot, my body humming with the foreign sensation of excitement.
Between the ugly words Finn said to me and the beautiful ones we shared in our stories, something shifted in me ever so slightly. Like a weight had lifted just enough to remind me how it feels to not constantly carry something so heavy.
After Marin and Finn went to bed, I forced myself to open Travis’ closet. The first time since he left. I did laundry the day of his crash, hung everything up where it belonged, then closed the doors and never looked in there again. As far as I was concerned, it was a sealed tomb not to be disturbed for all eternity.
It was, like everything else in my life, an echo of what used to be. His salty, citrusy smell didn’t linger, his voice didn’t whisper from the rustling of his shirts, and his familiar arms didn’t reach out to hug me. It was just a closet of stuff.
I easily bagged most of them up to donate, but when I got to his t-shirts, I couldn’t let them go. They were just so him.
“How else will I remember this place?”he would ask with a grin.
Whether we were on a big vacation or just down the street at a restaurant, if there was a t-shirt for sale, he was buying it. After almost two decades of the habit, he had nearly achieved hoarder status with his ridiculous collection.
I went through all of them and smiled as I remembered each story. One from a hotdog stand just a few miles outside of town. Dinghy’s Dongs, it said in big loopy letters, making me laugh out loud. Like a teenage boy, he bought it because he thought it was insanely funny. I closed my eyes when I held it, and I could see his face and hear his voice so intensely from the day we went there for lunch.
“Would you like a dong today, Nel?”he had asked with a wolfish smile as he leaned against the counter at the window.
Every shirt pushed a button to start a slideshow of memories in my brain, taking me back to the scene like it was unfolding in real-time. I spent hours last nightlost in the faded cotton artifacts that made up our whole history. I spent as much time crying as I did laughing.
I take a sip of my coffee and cringe. For seventeen years, Travis made my coffee every day, and somehow, after over a year of having to make it myself, it’s still never a guarantee I’ll get it right.
Honestly—it’s mostly wrong.
I look around the living room. The house—far from modern—is a little bungalow built in the 80s we slowly remodeled. The walls are painted in jewel tone colors of blues and greens, dotted with paintings by local artists. The floor is tiled, but most of it’s covered with natural fibered rugs and oversized tropical houseplants shoved in every corner.
Even in my year of misery, I managed to keep them alive.
The lime green velvet sofa in the middle of the room is now covered with stacks of Travis’ t-shirts I laid out to look like a department store display. Somehow, despite the chaos of all the colors and ridiculous graphics, they look like they belong.
An alarm goes off from one of the bedrooms followed by the sounds of drawers sliding open and closed. In minutes, Finn and Marin will see what I’ve done. I go to the mirror in the hall to give myself one last look.
“God, you look awful,” I mutter to my reflection.
Even after I purposefully tried to look alive by skipping my usual shades of gray for one of the shirts I found last night—a bright green favorite of mine from the Everglades—I’m homely. My skin is pale, my hair is dull, and I look every bit of my forty-one years and then some. The braid in my hair doesn’t make me look like the cool kind of mom I hoped for and the mascara I had swiped on somehow makes me look more dead than alive. Mostly dead.
I shake my head, laugh so I don’t cry, and then wait by the couch where Marin and Finn meet me with confused looks on their sleepy faces.
“Mom? What’s going on?” Marin asks, yawning into her hand and taking a step toward the clothes.
Finn doesn’t move, but his eyes drop to my shirt.
Travis’ shirt.
“Morning!” I raise my mug of disgusting coffee in mock cheers, suddenly aware of how nervous I am. “So, after dinner last night and those great stories about Dad and everyone telling me how depressing I am, I got to thinking about everything, you know? And maybe it’s time I do something…”
Their response comes in the form of silence and blinking.
“Anyway, the stories made me think of all your dad’s ridiculous t-shirts, and how much he loved them, and what a waste they were just sitting in his closet.” I pause, not sure if I make sense. “What I’m trying to say is, I went through your dad’s clothes last night. I kept a few t-shirts for myself, my favorite ones, but I wanted to see if you guys wanted any of these. To wear or keep or whatever.”
I spin the gold band around my finger and look at them, waiting for something… what? Confetti? I forgot to think that far ahead.
Marin silently picks up one of the shirts, pinching the shoulders so it unfolds in front of her, revealing a large lobster.
I take another sip of coffee then fill the silence they seem to not notice.
“And as you can see, I picked the one from the Everglades. Remember that trip? We spent all that money to watch that toothless man feed raw chicken to a gator. Your dad thought it was hilarious, but we were all too covered by mosquito bites to even watch.”
I trace the line of the alligator standing on hairy legs with dark green blocky letters that say Sasquatch is a Gator that covers the shirt I’m wearing.
I swallow hard, twice, then wait.
Finn finally says, “Dibs on the one from the owl sanctuary.”
And while he doesn’t fully smile, his lips tip slightly enough to ease the tension in my shoulders. I remember the shirt exactly: Hoot for Hooters written in a red scripty font above a cartoon owl.
“Mom!” Marin gasps. “This is so fun! Let’s all wear one today. Dress like Dad Day! Dress like Dad Day!” Her chanting makes me laugh as she wildly digs through the shirts.
“I’m going to make breakfast. Blueberry pancakes?”
“Sure,” Finn says, lifting one of the shirts without looking at me.
As I mix ingredients in a bowl, listening as they tell stories, my chest tightens. Happiness over the t-shirts being worn clashes with the devastation of Travis not being the one to wear them.