Page 52 of Down Shift (Driven 8)
Besides, it won’t be the first time I’ll say good-bye to Mom. Or my dad. But that’s just it. Will delving further into the box bring back more? Will it make me remember things my mind tried to protect me from?
“Fuck,” I mutter while my mind keeps running. Fuck you and your doubt that makes me fear the worst, and fuck you and your hope that makes me want something more.
Thoughts of burning the box rise up as I stare at it—I long to watch it go up in flames so I can hold tight to the memories I have. Of thinking my mother walked on water.
Bodies are buried for a reason—shouldn’t their secrets be too?
Torching the box would make it easier all around. Rid myself of the source of anxiety that caused me to lash out and risk every single thing I’ve been given and worked for.
But since when has anything in regard to my childhood been that easy to get rid of?
Is it too much to want to connect to some good thing in the box? The kind of thing every kid deserves to have from his past? Would it be too much for there to be pictures? Something with smiling faces and my mom’s arms wrapped around me with love? Something I can utilize to will back a positive memory to help smother the bad ones?
But what if there aren’t any good memories there?
My fingers toy with the flaps of the box. The internal war continues to rage. Fuck it. Just open the damn box. Shit or get off the pot. Look at one thing per day until you can handle more. That’s why you came here in the first place, right?
The sound of cardboard scraping against itself fills the room. Curiosity and dread rifle through me simultaneously. The stapled packet of paper is on top right where I left it.
My fingertips fidget with edges while I chew the inside of my lip, and I don’t need to see the outlined diagram of a body with marks indicating stab wounds or read the words describing what I can still see in my mind.
I feel stupid for the nerves that have me hesitating—upset with myself for having them—but know men are creatures of avoidance by nature. We want to dominate, be in control, and yet the slightest crack in our foundations can rock our world.
And I’ve survived too many earthquakes already in my lifetime.
I set the report down and shuffle through the contents, purposely not looking at them closely. I need a good memory today, something to help ease the power this box holds over me. So I dig through the unorganized mess intent on finding the smooth, distinct texture of a photograph.
When I touch one, I know it instantly. My fingers make out what feels like a rubber band on the thin stack and I sigh in relief. I might retrieve another memory. A piece of normalcy from those first seven years of my life. My hands shake as I step back and sit down on the bed, nervous over the glimpse of my past I’m going to get.
She’s beautiful. It’s my only conscious thought when I see my mom for the first time in almost twenty years. Dark hair, light eyes, and a genuine smile. Sure, her clothes are worn and the car she’s sitting in front of is a patchwork of Bondo and mismatched colors, but she’s even prettier than I remembered. Time must have dulled the memories.
And sitting in her lap is a little brown-haired boy with skinned knees, a baseball cap crooked on his head, and a mitt on the grass to the right of them. It’s me. The picture of a carefree little boy I don’t ever remember being but who seems perfectly content in his mom’s lap. I stare down at it until my eyes blur, try to commit it to memory as if the picture is going to vanish.
I’m so lost in the photo I forget there are more behind it. Once I remember, I continue the process with each one, studying it, trying to pull a memory from the image, thankful for the chance to reconnect with a lighter side of my childhood.
I look like her. That’s what I see as I flip through them. The same eyes, the same-shaped mouth, a similar nose. It’s weird to actually be looking at the pictures and be able to draw a comparison of myself with someone.
Then I come to a picture of my dad. He seems less scary then I remember. Faded jeans torn at the knees. Thumbs hanging in his pockets. A cigarette dangling from his mouth. His hair long and unkempt. His body scraggly. Bruises visible on the inside of one of his arms.
I stare at his face for the longest time, not to remember him, but rather to make sure I’m nothing like him. I take in everything about the picture, pick it apart, study it. And no matter how hard I try, all I see is the monster standing in the darkened doorway, covered in my mom’s blood. And the vacant look in his eyes as he held a gun on Rylee wh
en he tried to kidnap me so I couldn’t testify after I’d regained my voice.
When I’m convinced we’re nothing alike, I flip to the last picture in the batch. My mom’s lying next to a sleeping me, my back to her front, her arm wrapped around my abdomen holding me close, and a soft smile on her lips.
Without thinking, I run my fingertip over her face and all of a sudden I can hear her voice humming “Are You Sleeping?” in my head. It’s weird and I don’t know what to make of it other than I vaguely recall how she used to curl up beside me on my bed, her lips to the top of my head, and the heat of her breath warming my hair as she sang the song to put me to sleep.
My heart pounds from the memory I never knew I had. A disbelieving smile spreads on my lips as I close my eyes and try to recall more, flipping through the pictures over and over, hoping to jog something else loose.
Excited about the prospect of having more memories from my first seven years to block out all the pain, I move back to the box to see what else it holds. I grab a stack of papers, then notice the cover sheet on the first packet I pull is the rap sheet for one Lola Sullivan. I glance over petty misdemeanors and then toss it back in the box immediately. I have zero desire to taint the image I’ve just gotten back of her in my head. There are newspaper cuttings that mention the murder and the search for my dad. Tiny one-by-one squares with no compassion for the woman who at the time was my everything. The next packet of paper is thicker. It’s a case file from the Los Angeles Child Protective Services.
With my name on it.
By the width of the file, I have a feeling its contents won’t surprise the man I am but might derail the little boy in me still looking for closure. It might blow the only memory I have of my mother when she’s not covered in blood—the one I just got back—to smithereens and I don’t think I’m ready for that just yet.
So I take the pictures, the reports, everything I don’t want to face, and put them back in the box, tuck in the flaps so they stay closed, and walk out of the room without looking back.
But I have a new memory to hold on to when there used to be none.
