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Writing.Com Item ID: #639640
Title: The Trunk
Item Type: Static Item
Brief: Mavis cleans up after her marriage...
Last Modified: 02-26-2003 @ 7:06pm
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Every day of the fifty-five years of her marriage had been difficult for Mavis Johnson.
Dwight had been the closest thing to a war hero that Rockland had known and much had been made of the fact that he had served under the other, better known Dwight in Europe. When he returned after the war, Mavis had to remind him of their promises to each other.
She had been more foolish than she could have imagined. If she had known what the next fifty five years would be like, she would have let him chase after all those silly girls who had only noticed him after he’d returned a "hero."
But she hadn’t known. All she knew was that he’d promised to return to her after the war and they would get married. She pursued this despite the fact that, although he came back, he seemed more interested in meeting new girls and doing new things than in marrying her.
As she sat among the photos and other memorabilia to be sorted, she thought back to her wedding day. For years she had remembered it as an idyllic day, but now she remembered that Dwight had become quite drunk at their reception. That night, what should have become sweet memories of tender love and passion, had instead become repressed memories of drunkenness and pain.
Put those photos into the trunk.
One photo caught her eye. It was her alone in her wedding gown. Her face radiated with anticipation of a happy future. She kept that picture out of the trunk.
There were other items she wanted to put into the trunk. Dwight had kept all his junk up here in the attic.
Fishing poles! They could definitely go into the trunk. Even Stanley wouldn’t want them. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that his father had cared more about fishing than about his own son.
The day Stanley was born was a clear, beautiful, late summer Saturday. Mavis had had a feeling that it would be the day and had begged Dwight to stay home, but he’d insisted on going fishing.
"Not many good fishing days left."
He patted her belly.
"This one will wait a bit longer."
But he hadn’t waited. No more than an hour after Dwight left, her water broke. She called her parents, who scolded her for letting him go fishing "at a time like this," but they came and took her to the hospital.
Dwight hadn’t bothered to tell anyone exactly where he would be fishing. It took all day for anyone to find him. He’d arrived at the hospital two hours after Stanley had been born.
His first words to Mavis were "Damn it, Mavis, couldn’t you have waited a bit? I had Old Hookmouth on the line, ready to reel in. I almost had him. Then we could have really celebrated."
Fishing poles, ugly fish plaque, flies, lures -- all into the trunk.
Mavis looked around to see what else she should put into the trunk. Cheryl’s trophies sat in a box in a corner. Cheryl had been born two years after Stanley. Dwight’s first words to Mavis after her birth were "I wish it had been another boy. I don’t know anything about girls."
This had proven quite true. Dwight had treated her no differently than he had Stanley. He seemed to have expected her to act just like a boy and pushed her into sports and teased her when she wanted to do more girlish things.
Mavis thought how this could have been such a good thing for Cheryl, if only he’d ever admitted that she was any good. She’d won those trophies only for him, but all he ever did was point out how any boy, except Stanley, of course, would have done much better.
At eighteen she had become pregnant and married. Later she became a hairdresser.
"At least it’s something I’m good at, Ma."
Into the trunk went the trophies.
In another corner, Mavis found a box she didn’t recognize. She opened it and hissed in disgust. Dwight had kept his letters to and from Helen and her son. That boy had been ten when Mavis found out about him. Dwight had to travel for work and would often be gone for five or more days at a time each month for twelve years. Helen finally grew tired of the part-time arrangement and confronted Mavis for not letting him have a divorce. Helen left when she realized Dwight had lied about everything.
Into the trunk with all the letters.
Mavis had forgiven Dwight. What else could she do? Women’s rights had not yet made much headway. She had no skills to go out into the world and make it on her own. So she had lived quietly until seven years earlier when Dwight had just disappeared. She’d kept house and fed Dwight, showed up at social functions with him. She’s swallowed the bile when people told her how lucky she was to have a man who’d stayed with her all these years. And then he disappeared.
She spent the whole day in the attic. Into the trunk went all the memories of lonely nights, of petty bickering, of wondering what she’d done wrong. Most of her life went into the trunk.
***
"Ma! Why couldn’t you have moved the trunk out empty and then filled it?"
Stanley stood leaning on the trunk on the landing halfway to the second floor, sweat pouring down his face.
"I didn’t want to be running up and down the stairs all day. I’m not a kid any more with that kind of energy."
"I’m not either, Ma. What’s in here to make it so heavy?"
"It’s the wood, Stanley. That kind is always heavy. It’s probably only half full. Just get it out and please stop complaining."
Stanley stopped again when he got it to the porch.
"You want it with all the other stuff out here?"
"No. Take it to the burn pile."
"The burn pile? You want me to empty it there?"
"No! The whole thing goes into the fire!"
"Isn’t this a good piece of wood? Gee, Ma, if you don’t want it, I could use it. Elaine would love a good storage trunk."
"No, Stanley. This is not suitable for storage any more. It’s ruined."
"It looks fine to me. Just needs refinishing."
"It’s ruined inside and can’t be fixed. It has to go. Put it on the burn pile."
"Okay, Ma, but it looks and feels like something that could be restored, whatever’s wrong with it."
Stanley struggled half an hour more to get the trunk to the burn pile. He thought to himself that he’s come back after Ma moved to retrieve it. Elaine could fix it up and Ma would never know.
***
Mavis walked out into the night when Stanley left after dinner. He was so transparent to her.
Tomorrow she would be leaving this house and all her life with Dwight behind her. A young couple just starting out had bought the house. She hoped their lives would be happier here than hers had been. She had one thing to do to make sure Dwight was not left in this house or her life to cause more ruin.
Everything Dwight was in the trunk. All his possessions, all the memories and all the pain.
Mavis poured the contents of the gas can over the trunk and surrounding trash. She picked up a decent sized dry branch and walked away from the burn pile. After igniting the branch, she threw it onto the pile. There was a "swoosh" and a loud "poof" and the flames lept up and began to dance.
Mavis stood through the night in the light of the fire, watching all the memories and pain burn away and turn to ashes with Dwight’s possessions... and his bones.