An accounting, since you tend to divide the world into what’s yours and what can never be.
The silver sleeve of a Frosted Blueberry Pop-Tart packet on the kitchen counter, one left. Your daughter needed breakfast. Two peaches rotting into each other, half a tray of Oreos, three frozen meals crusted in ice. The smell of cigarettes and seasonal candles and sweet toddler shit that I could never scrub out of the walls.
That electric blanket with the chewed-through cord, a space heater, one fan with a tilted neck that spews dust. Four vacation photos set in the backyard of your parent’s place down in Sarasota tacked to the fridge. Our one vacation. You hated your father, a north star for righteous fury, but you were so afraid of becoming him that you forgot yourself. (In a letter, I know! Hold your complaints, I can hear them already. Just read.)
The plastic arm of a doll under the couch, miniature sunglasses clutched by the arm, a red convertible responsible for the crash. Quinn never took to the doll. She’d rather throw rocks or cast spells in her own babble, stubborn as she is. You’d say she got that from you, but her will is stronger than either of us and I pray that it holds.
A string of Christmas lights, one imitation Christmas tree, and seventeen ornaments, including an angel for the top of the tree with its wing snapped off—Quinn cried when it fell but you said it couldn’t fly away on us now. Remember?
We left you Kenny the Cat. He’s an asshole but you’re a better man when you have something to take care of. I cleaned the litter box.
Eight karate trophies won in the late 90’s crowded on the dresser (an observation, so don’t get mad at an observation, or ask yourself why that’s your reaction). A large wooden crucifix that always creeped me out, a crib with the rails sawed off, twenty-five glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, a coin dish holding four sticky pennies, three open mints, and a Camel Crush with eight puffs left for when you get home. I don’t usually smoke, but.
Two Bibles, one with a bookmark, the other hollowed out, but I took the pocketknife from inside. I’ll need it on the road and anyways you’re one of those boys who thinks violence never ends in blood. Your uncle claims it was well-used in Vietnam, but I think he got it at Joe’s Army Navy Surplus. It’s OK: Every family needs stories to pass down, but I don’t want her carrying those stories, and if you’re honest with yourself you don’t want that either. If they’re true, that’s worse, and some stories should die with the people who hold them.
When you find this, you’ll be angry and chew on ice until your jaw goes numb. I’d be worried if you felt nothing but think of all the adventures for Quinn out here. I’ll write, let you know some of them. There’s nothing left in our home—we’ve lived through all the days there.
I’d tell you about the things we took, but you already know what you’ve lost.
Alex Juffer lives in a small town in Minnesota with his wife, two dogs, and a family of attic squirrels. He’s won competitions, been a Wigleaf Top 50, and has publications in Epoch, Passages North, Monkey Bicycle, Vestal Review, X-R-A-Y, The Los Angeles Review, and more.
Lost Balloon 