Page 18 of Licks

The year I was born.

Could these contents and band stickers have been from then? They certainly fit the bill, but that wouldn’t explain the eleven-year gap between being packed and sent on a Greyhound bus.

More confused than ever, I spent time with each piece, smoothed the worn fabrics, tried to picture my mother in something other than black, white, gray, or beige. She’d kept her hair short, her shoes functional and flat. Whoever this Mary Hamilton had been, she’d had questionable taste, too, but colorful.

Two pairs of shoes were below her clothing. One was a cute set of beaded sandals. Sandals I’d actually wear. I ran my fingers over the blue beads, unsure how this miniskirt wearing, INXS-loving girl had had the color sucked from her life. Except the possible answer had my throat feeling thick. If the Rolling Stone date was the more accurate one, if these contents were from 1990, not 2001, then I was the thing that had sucked her color dry.

I’d been the child she hadn’t wanted.

I clenched and unclenched my hands, unsure why my heart rate had picked up. I didn’t love my mother. Miss her? Not on your life. She was unimportant, a barely-there blip on my ancestral radar. So why was I zoning out, staring at nothing while my lungs worked double-time?

Too much history had been unearthed today. August. My WTF. My crappy childhood. August. An unhealthy amount of time passed as I touched those sandals.

Eventually, I shook my head and reached for the other shoes. These were odd—soft black leather with laces and small square heels. Deep creases ringed the middles as though the arches had been bent every which way. Jazz shoes? For dancing? I snorted out a laugh. This was too much. Picturing my mother taking a bong hit was easier than imagining her shaking jazz hands. These couldn’t belong to a woman who’d never listened to music.

I turned the soft shoes over, ran my fingers along the soles and laces. Inside the heel was a scribbled name: Mary Hamilton. My breath caught.

That tiny scrawl shot this reality home, confirming beyond a doubt these belongings had been hers. The mother I’d come to resent had lived a phantom life.

I moved faster, going through her toiletries (red lipstick, the woman had red lipstick!), sifting through her lacy underwear, and a bible. The bible made sense. From what I knew of my grandparents, they were religious. The zealot sort whose lives revolved around church. I set the book aside, along with every other article she’d lost. Nothing pointed to any friends she’d had, or a boyfriend. I still couldn’t accurately gauge what year it was all from. It was just stuff, like August had said.

That didn’t stop me from another exhaustive analysis, the same intense focus I used at my job.

When couples applied for adoption, I double, triple, and quadruple checked their facts, making sure babies were matched with the right parents. If Mary Hamilton had applied for a baby from me, I wouldn’t have allowed her to adopt a Home Economics egg.

But every day, I made families whole. I helped babies land in loving homes, with caring parents who would nurture and protect them, everything I never had.

I applied the same extensive analysis to the artifacts before me. I turned every item of clothing inside out. I checked the edges of the suitcase. I flipped through the entire Rolling Stone issue, finding nothing but one dog-eared page: a “fancy” boombox advertising quality CD sound. Totally cool and retro, but not a clue to my father’s identity or the suitcase’s origin.

I started again.

Partway through my third pass, strumming teased my ears. August. I blinked at my surroundings, unsure how long I’d been searching through the case. A glance at my phone told me almost two hours had passed. Two hours, and August was still here. He must have found my old guitar among the boxes. My small pile of memories I couldn’t part with.

He played a quiet tune, familiar soft notes: America’s “Horse with No Name,” the first song he’d ever taught me. The simple melody flowed with only two chords, easy to teach. August had sat with his legs around me, my back rounded against his chest, his fingers moving mine along the strings. I’d figured it out pretty quick, but had pretended to struggle—to keep him close, to keep his hands on mine, to pretend I’d been brave enough to spin and press my lips to his.

His choice of song pulled at me. The nostalgia in here must be getting to him, too. Forgetting the mess I’d made on the floor, I leaned on my hand to push to my feet and sneak a peek of him, only to realize my mother’s bible had gotten lost under my debris. It caved slightly when I picked it up, the middle of it denting. Odd.

I shifted to my knees and opened the cover. “Holy shit,” I murmured.

My pulse was back to hammering, a frantic tune drowning August’s soft song. My mother, the apparent rebel, had cut out the interior of her bible like she’d been an undercover agent. Inside her hidey hole was a journal.

Carefully, I extricated the journal from its hiding spot and opened the cover. I grinned at the scrawled note:

If you’re reading this, you’ve stolen my property.

Put it back or face the consequences.

The dates inscribed in the top right corner edged the grin from my face: 1989-1990. I reached out to touch the writing, but yanked my hand back.

This wasn’t a coincidence. These dates matched the magazine and clothing styles. These contents must have been from that time. It didn’t explain why the bag had gone missing in 2001, but not much about this suitcase arriving at my mother’s door made sense.

What was startlingly clear was that I held a diary. One written by mother, encompassing the times during which I’d been conceived and born.

This could lead me to my father.

No matter how often I’d asked her who he was growing up, she’d clam up. No hints given, only bitter sneers or blank stares. Now I had a hidden journal from the year I was conceived. Be careful what you wish for. The cautious saying looped through my mind as I steadied my breath and shook out my hands, like I was readying to touch hot coals.

I may have spent my entire teenage and adult life desperate for this knowledge, but it suddenly seemed daunting. This journal had the power to rewrite my past and shape my future, and not all shapes were pretty. Still, I opened it.