Page 16 of This Is How It Started
Brooke had offered to do it—or rather hire someone to do it—but we wouldn’t hear of it. It wasn’t so much an act of kindness toward the grieving widow as it was a territorial thing. We are dogs peeing on our domain. I wonder if Brooke realizes that.
Josh carts out the boxes while we move to the main bedroom.
It’s the first time I’ve been inside my dad and Brooke’s suite and it’s weird, almost like we’re in the room of strangers. Even the scent is different. My parents’ bedroom always smelled faintly of my mother’s perfume. Instead of the four-poster—another one of my mother’s flea market finds—there’s a modern platform bed that doesn’t really go with the period of the house. Like the bed, the bedding has a modern vibe. Lots of bright colors and swirly designs. Maybe Marimekko. But Josh would know better.
The walk-in closet is half the size of the one in my parents’ old bedroom, and my father’s clothes take up most of the space. Brooke doesn’t appear to have a whole lot. Just a row of jeans, a few dresses and skirts, some dress pants, and a small rod with blouses. A stack of sweaters is folded neatly on one of the shelves next to a higher pile of T-shirts and an even higher stack of scrubs. Compared to my mother’s wardrobe, Brooke lives like a Buddhist monk.
“Let’s do in here first and make our way to the bathroom,” Hannah says. “Everything we’re keeping goes on the bed. Everything else in a box for the Goodwill.”
I want Josh to have something of my dad’s, but Adam gets first choice. Unlike the stuff in his study, it feels a little ghoulish going through his clothes. Adam pulls out a black tuxedo, which I don’t remember ever seeing my father in.
“Kinda cool.” Adam holds it against himself and stares in the mirror on the back of the door.
Hannah and I erupt with laughter.
“Where will you ever wear it?” she says.
“Bond. James Bond,” Adam says to his reflection, ignoring Hannah.
“You’re an idiot,” I say.
He chucks the tux in the Goodwill box, then changes his mind and throws it on the bed.
We sort through the racks of my father’s suits, sport coats, and slacks. Most of it is a bit staid for my brother’s and Josh’s taste, though it’s tasteful and expensive. A plastic surgeon has to look the part when he’s meeting with prospective patients.
“You think Stephen might want some of these?” I ask my sister.
She shakes her head. “Doubtful. Maybe we could donate them to one of those organizations that help men get back on their feet.”
I like that idea, and I know my father would have, too.
Josh returns, eyes the pile on the bed and joins us in the closet. “How’s it going in here?” He looks at me with eyes that say, “I know this is hard.”
“I want you to pick out something,” I say and open the drawer where my dad has his cuff links. I look over at Adam to make sure this is okay, and he nods. “My mother got him these for his fortieth birthday.” I hold up a vintage pair of Scholz and Lam square ones. They were made after WWII and are a modernist design that I think will appeal to Josh’s architectural sensibilities. I have always loved them.
“You sure?” Josh turns to Adam and Hannah.
“Go for it, dude,” Adam says.
“I know my father would’ve been honored,” Hannah says.
“I’m the one who’s honored.” Josh hooks his arm around my neck and kisses the top of my head. “Thank you.”
I finally find my father’s newsboy cap on a hook next to his jacket and put it on the bed pile, figuring that when we’re done, we’ll hash out who gets what. But I want the hat more than anything else, even more than the photo of my father and my safta on the family farm.
We’ve cleared the closet and have made good headway on the bathroom when Brooke pokes her head in. “How’s it going?” Her eyes, sort of a bluish green, search the room.
I give her credit for trusting us to invade her space. In the eight years she’s been married to our father, none of us has put in any effort to get to know her. Besides it being disloyal to my mother, we decided from day one that we didn’t like her. For the most part, we’re cordial with her but stiff. Occasionally, Adam will throw out a thinly veiled insult, which she pretends to misunderstand. For all intents and purposes, we’re strangers to her. Yet we’ve been pawing through her personal space like a nursery of racoons in a garbage can.
She steps in hesitantly, as if she’s intruding on a private memorial instead of her own bedroom. Her gaze shoots to the piles on the bed and lands on the newsboy cap.
“You can’t take that.” She snatches it off the bed.
“It was my dad’s hat,” I say, stating the obvious, unsure what she could possibly want with the faded tweed cap that predates her by at least three decades. There are far more precious pieces in the home, not to mention the house itself, which is all hers now.
“I’m aware of that.” Any pretense that we’re all one big happy family is gone as she clutches the hat to her chest.
“I don’t see why it would hold any importance to you,” I blurt, immediately wishing I’d said it differently. But it’s too late now, and I’m pretty sure it’s true. The image of my father in that hat probably means nothing to her.
