Personal Effects

by E. M. Kokie

  The wood gleamed, reflecting all the lights around it. My hand shook where I forced it flat on top of the casket. I held it there until I stopped trembling. But it wasn’t enough. I could still feel the shaky terror. I needed to know I wouldn’t lose it in front of everyone. Both hands on the wood made me lean forward, and so I went with it until my face was pressed against the smooth, hard top of the casket, cold under my cheek.

  No way could Dad come out and find my eyes red. But I could hang on and wait for the room to stop spinning, close my eyes and wait for it to be over.

  Shuffled feet. Things moving around. A door somewhere, and some muffled conversation. A door closing. Everything more quiet.

  “Son.” I couldn’t answer, or move. “Son,” the man who wasn’t Dad said again.

  I turned my head, too heavy to lift.

  “I’m sorry, but they’ll need to open the doors soon. And your father . . .”

  He didn’t need to say any more.

  I pulled myself off the wood, stepped back, and swayed until the man caught my arm and sat me in the nearest chair.

  He leaned down, his face distorted, too close.

  “Want me to get your father? Or . . .”

  “No.” I knew he hadn’t actually heard me, because he kept looking from me to the door and back. “No,” I said again. “Sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about,” he said. “Water?”

  I nodded. He jogged to the room off to the side and came back with a bottle of water. My hand shook, but I managed to drink most of it without spilling it all over my suit.

  “You gonna be all right?” he asked, moving an easel with pictures of T.J. closer to the casket. “You could go into the family room right there and lie down. We could close the door.”

  Fat chance Dad would let me hide in there. And he’d skin me alive if he knew I was being a wuss. Time to get it in gear. I chugged the rest of the water and made myself stand up, walk across the room, and throw it in the trash.

  The guy continued moving things around the casket: flowers, a low table with some cards on it, a basket for donations to a VA charity.

  “You sure you’re gonna be OK?” he finally asked after he’d adjusted everything twice and I’d made three laps of the room.

  “Yeah,” I said, ready.

  I walked right up to the casket and touched it, hand fine. As long as I didn’t look at the easel, I’d be fine. I stepped back so he could get to the table next to it and stood watch.

  “OK, well, you might want to go into the family room. I’ve got to do something here,” he said, motioning toward the casket.

  I wasn’t going anywhere.

  “I mean, I’ve got to open it for a second. Protocol.” He looked ready to freak himself.

  “Go ahead,” I said, holding my ground.

  He took a deep breath and shifted so his broad back would be between me and the casket, then he lifted it open. I moved fast next to him before he could shut it again. I knew not to look to the right, where there weren’t any legs. And I was too shitless to look left and risk seeing no head. So, I kept my eyes dead ahead on the arm I could see was there. I reached out and touched the arm. Over the fabric, but hard enough to feel it was solid. I was too chickenshit to do anything else, even to feel for skin, but I touched him.

  After, I bolted, so I didn’t see any more or hear the guy close the lid for the last time. But I manned up enough to touch him. To say good-bye. Then I puked and dry-heaved until I popped a blood vessel in my eye.

  By the time I snuck back through the side room, the casket had been draped with the flag and the main room was packed. I’d thought they’d said it was going to be a private funeral, family and close friends only. My family and close friends could fit in one car, Dad’s in maybe four cars, a bus if you count work people. But there were people everywhere. A line out the door. More uniforms. I almost backed out of the room.

  Shauna and her parents made their way through the crowd and stayed near me in the doorway to the family room until I could get up the courage to take my place next to Dad.

  “Matt,” Shauna said, her breath near my cheek, “you don’t have to go up there.”

  “Yeah, I do,” I said, steeling myself for the walk.

  Her fingers caught mine, and she held me back until I shook them off and stepped out from the safety of the dim side room.

  A gazillion pairs of eyes turned on me. Buzzes of sound, and tears. And none of it mattered. All that mattered was getting up there next to Dad. I took another step. Shauna touched my back.

  I don’t actually remember the walk. But I remember clearly the moment when I fell in line beside Dad. He didn’t move a muscle. I knew he’d seen me come up and that he was pissed I hadn’t been there when they opened the doors, but he didn’t look my way to say so or stare it at me. I looked back at Shauna, now crying into her father’s shoulder, made sure she knew that I knew she was there. Then I matched Dad’s stare ahead.

  We stood next to the casket forever while people filed past. Most of the time Dad looked like a statue with his hands clasped in front of him, face stone. Only some people got an acknowledgment, a handshake, mostly guys who had served with T.J. or Dad’s friends and employees. Most everyone else got a stare, at best. I shook all the hands, said the thank-yous, tried not to breathe my puke breath on anyone. Sometimes Uncle Mac stood between us; sometimes he scurried around, talking to people, making sure things were where they were supposed to be. Aunt Janelle handed out tissues and smiled at people through her free-flowing tears. I didn’t look at the casket again. Except when Mr. Anders came in.

  A whole group of the guys had come at the beginning, weird and quiet, respectful in their funeral clothes. But Mr. Anders came later. I almost didn’t recognize him, in his suit, his hair slicked back. His shoes gleamed. Regulation shine.

  Dad broke his pose to shake Mr. Anders’s hand and held it a beat longer than I think Mr. Anders wanted. Then Mr. Anders stepped back to shake my hand, reaching over to grab my shoulder, too. My eyes burned, and I stared at his shoes, stared at them all the way to the casket. And then I couldn’t help but look as he held his hand over his heart and then laid it over the flag-draped wood. More than anyone else, Mr. Anders felt real. Like it hurt all the way through him, too.

  Back at the house, I heard Uncle Mac tell someone they’d only been able to find one of T.J.’s arms. Really stupid, but I hoped it had been his right. I needed it to be his right arm. It seemed really fucked up that after all of that, I might not have touched T.J. at all.

  Now I can’t care. Even if it was his arm, it hadn’t been him, not really, because whatever was in that casket, it wasn’t T.J.

  THAT NIGHT, EVEN AFTER A LONG-ASS DAY OF PAINTING and staining, I get home before Dad. Inside, the quiet presses on me, almost egging me on to take a quick look upstairs. But Dad could be home any minute. Next week. I can wait another few days not to tip him off.

  I head outside with a soda and some chips.

  The long hours of work helped clear my head.

  Sun warmed and temporarily less hungry, I wait for Dad. As soon as he cleans up and heads out again, I’ll call Shauna. I need to see her, and need to be distracted. Next week can’t come soon enough.

  Mrs. Russell across the street spends half her day pretending to do stuff in her yard so she can snoop on the neighborhood. Today that means she spends a long time pretending not to watch me.

  Another reminder that I’ve been ignoring these people my whole life: Mrs. Russell in particular, since the day we moved in and Dad said to stop staring at the old lady sweeping the street.

  Dad’s truck pulls into the driveway.

  The neighbors, the kids at school, everyone. All I have to do is breathe and coast and figure all the other shit out later. People do it all the time. Work. Live. Get by. No need to panic. Except, of course, that later is breathing down my neck.

  Dad walks across the lawn. “What’re you doing?” he asks, looking around like he’s afr
aid people will see me.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” An edge to that, but more curious than irritated.

  “Sitting. Sun felt good.”

  “And?” Dad asks.

  And what? I think, but I know better than to say it.

  “Work? Are you going to get enough to pay half what you owe by the last day of classes, as promised?”

  As he promised. “Mr. Anders has me on a crew next week after school, and he’s looking at where he can use me after that until my summer crew starts.” Between that and what I had saved up, it’ll be close.

  “You make sure you take on as many shifts as he can offer from now until summer. I’m not paying a penny for that display case, you hear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “OK, then.”

  Dad looks at Mrs. Russell. “That old bat never misses anything, does she?” Almost a smile — not quite, but almost. What the hell? He run over a small child on the way home? Maybe a puppy?

  “All right, well, enough of this crap.”

  And mood over.

  “I’m heading to your uncle Mac’s as soon as I’ve changed. Might be nice if you tackled that heaping pile of laundry sometime this weekend.” It’s not a suggestion. “Something’s started to fester in there.”

  I clean up the kitchen, washing out my glass and taking out the trash. Then I head downstairs, so I can avoid any more encounters with Dad.

  As soon as his truck clears the corner, I call Shauna, letting her know the coast is clear. Her mother made her promise to be home by ten, but letting her out on a school night shows just how much Mrs. G. likes me. Doubt she’d let her go see Michael on a school night.

  In the shower I think about what she might bring me for dinner, hoping for something from home, instead of a pizza or takeout. I can order food with the best of them. And sure, I can live on macaroni, cereal, and microwavables. But I can’t cook for shit. Not real food. For the first time since the fight, maybe earlier, I’m starving for something real.

  We’ll watch a movie down here. Means tomorrow my room might still smell like her. It’ll make it easy to close my eyes and pretend she’s really there, and we’re actually doing all the things I can imagine us doing. Even after I’m trying to think about anything else, my head keeps thinking about her. I run out of hot water and have to rush under the lukewarm spray.

  I have just enough time to throw on some clothes and pull up the comforter before I hear her car.

  The side door bangs open. “Hello!” she bellows down the stairs.

  “Be up in a minute,” I yell back.

  Her footsteps move up the three steps to the kitchen. One last quick look around the room, which looks OK, and then one last glance in the mirror near the door. I look OK, too.

  The microwave dings. My stomach growls in anticipation. At the turn by the laundry room, I smell the heavenly scent of a home-cooked meal, reheated but still home-cooked. My mouth waters. I don’t even care what it is.

  She’s been waiting to see how messed up I am; I know she has. I can’t do anything about my face, or hand, or the bruises that show. I planned to take the steps two at a time, shut up some of her worrying by showing her I’m fine. But after the long day bent over baseboards, then later standing over the cabinet doors, the best I can do is try not to limp or show her I can’t lift my right arm very far.

  Her first look says it all — the forced smile doesn’t hide her shock.

  “I’m fine,” I say.

  Her eyebrows climb to the messy hair curling around her forehead.

  “Really.”

  “Yeah, sure, you’re just great,” she says. It’s harsh and kind of angry, but I’m pretty sure she’s not angry at me.

  As we’ve done a gazillion times before, without even talking about it, we head to the back porch. She carries the plate and fork. I grab a couple of sodas from the fridge.

  She holds the plate, waiting for me to settle down on the top step, facing out toward the woods at the back of the yard. With the sun sliding toward night, and the pinky-purple sky behind her, her hair looks even more golden than usual, streaky and kind of glowy in places. She moves a little and I realize I’ve been staring.

  I trade her one of the sodas for the steaming plate. Before digging in, I wait for her to sit. But she puts her soda down so she can pull her sweatshirt from around her waist and tug it over her head. COUGAR SOCCER blazes across her chest in brand-spanking-new gold letters. I remind myself not to stare. It’s new — the sweatshirt, not her chest. Her chest has been tormenting me for years. Last week, all the rising-senior soccer players got their “senior sweatshirts” in one of those very-important-to-them ceremony things. She’s been wearing it whenever it’s the least bit cool enough and being very careful not to get it dirty. Shauna already has senior fever: excited and going through all the rituals of junior year to be ready. The way things are going, I may never be a senior. Her teammates think I’m a loser. They’re not the only ones.

  I wait until she’s seated beside me to start. By then the casserole’s cool enough not to blister the roof of my mouth. Sitting side by side, I can’t see her face without turning my head, but I don’t need to look to know her face right now: tight, pinched, scared and sad and cautious, like she’s looked most of the semester, only a little bit worse, because of the fight. Her dark-brown eyes are probably squinted with worry, drowning out the gold flecks.

  I grunt my appreciation around a mouthful of chicken casserole. It’s warm and creamy and perfect. And pretty soon, there’s a growing pile of mushrooms on the edge of the plate and a spreading warmth in my stomach. Shauna must’ve told her mom she was bringing me dinner, because, despite the mushrooms, it’s one of my favorite meals ever.

  “Your ribs OK?” At least she let me get mostly done with dinner.

  “Never better.” I don’t really look at her, but I catch the small, mocking smile and shake of her head anyway. “Shauna.” My warning voice has never been as good as hers.

  “Yeah, right,” she says. “Sure.”

  She is pissed, and maybe at me. I can’t tell. Unnerving enough that she might be su;ciently pissed to get into it, but after all the months of her constantly studying me, those tense looks, not knowing is torture. I just can’t read her anymore.

  And now I can’t eat anymore, either.

  “Let it go.” I push the plate toward her on the step between us, knowing she’ll pick at the leftovers if she isn’t too pissed. At least the chicken and broccoli, and with her fingers, not my fork. I try not to smile when she picks up the plate. There’s hope for better yet.

  “At least clean out your knuckles,” she says. “They look kind of red. Are they getting infected?” She wrinkles her face for emphasis.

  I look at my hands. They are kind of gross, but I didn’t really think about them. I pick at the edge of the scab on my pinky finger until it rips. When I look up, she’s stopped eating, obviously disgusted.

  “Seriously, Matt, you could get really sick. You should clean them out with some peroxide or alcohol or something, maybe put some antibiotic cream and bandages on them at night.”

  We don’t have any peroxide or ointment or anything. I try to get my pinky to stop bleeding by sucking on it.

  “Lovely,” Shauna says. “Before the movie, at least wash that off and put a Band-Aid on it.”

  Back inside, I take the plate and wave her toward the stairs, pretending to crumple in pain when she flicks my chest as she walks past me.

  Shauna’s already putting in the DVD, but I dig through the drawer in the bathroom until I find a stray Band-Aid in the back. I scrub my knuckles with soap, then put the Band-Aid on the one that kept bleeding. It doesn’t want to stick, but I hold it on with the finger next to it.

  When I come back in, she smiles her approval, maybe like the future nurse she wants to be. It kind of makes me want to rip the Band-Aid off for spite. But I don’t.

  Shauna pulls her sweatshirt over her head. Her T-shirt
rides up. I busy myself with the remote. Some of my favorite fantasies start with her shirt pulling up to reveal smooth, pale skin.

  Between her being in my room, the weirdness from upstairs, and the general weirdness between us lately, I don’t know where to sit. But she sits on the floor, steals my pillow, and leans against my bed. Makes it easy to do the same.

  Once the movie starts, one we’ve seen a dozen times, things get normal between us again, at least what’s been passing for normal since November. The crinkling wrappers and flood of grape smell from Shauna’s candy feels exactly like a hundred other times we’ve sat right here, her oblivious, and me trying not to let on what having her here, in my room, does to me.

  And it feels good, just us, and little talking except to mock the movie.

  After, neither of us moves to put in another right away. But when the quiet gets too heavy, I try to get up fast to change the DVD. Big mistake. My muscles have tightened up and hurt like hell. I can’t help wincing and hissing.

  “Geez, Matt.”

  “I’m fine.” I smile down at her, trying to convince her. To break the tension, I try for a laugh. “You shoulda seen the other guys.”

  She doesn’t laugh. “I did.” She hesitates, then looks away, undoing her messy hair from its band, and then taking her time gathering all the stray hair in again. It’s a habit, when she doesn’t know what else to do. “The side of Michael’s face is turning purple. He had a concussion.”

  Great, just what I need — Michael using the fight as a way to get back in with Shauna. With my luck, she’ll be so impressed with his maturity and concern she’ll let him below the equator this time. Just freaking great.

  “You really messed Pinscher up.” It isn’t quite an accusation.

  “I know.” I close my eyes and shift my weight from one foot to the other. I can’t stand her looking at me like that. “Shauna, I . . .” I almost say I’m sorry, but it would be stupid to apologize to her for beating up Pinscher. I try to figure out what she wants to hear.

  She takes three steps over to my bed and sits down. “What happened? I mean, why . . . ?”