Packing Up the Past

The stairs did not creak until the seventh step. I knew the spot by habit and stepped wide over it, though no one below was listening anyway.

My bedroom smelled like cedar and paper. The morning sun cut through the blinds in white bars across the unmade quilt. Twelve hours ago, I had slept here. Now the room felt like an exhibit behind glass, static and foreign.

I dragged the canvas duffel from the floor of the closet. The zipper pull was missing, replaced two summers back with a loop of copper wire. I yanked it open and dropped to my knees on the rug.

First came the laptop from the desk. I wrapped the power cord around the brick in tight figure eights and slid both into the inner sleeve. Then the lockbox behind my dictionaries. The key lived taped to the bottom of the pencil cup. Inside sat my birth certificate, the state seal stiff under my thumb, along with my Social Security card and two hundred dollars from three babysitting shifts. I slipped the folder between my laptop and the canvas wall.

Downstairs, a cabinet door clicked shut. Water rushed through the pipes in the wall, loud and steady as my mother rinsed a mug.

I turned to the dresser. Four pairs of wool socks. Three pairs of dark jeans. Six cotton shirts. The heavy sweater with frayed cuffs. I rolled each piece tight to save room, the way Lena had shown me when we packed for camp three years ago. My hands shook twice, but I pressed my knuckles against the edge of the wood until the tremor died down.

The shelves stayed full. I left the ceramic horse from fifth grade, the school photos where my brother stood in front and I stood behind his shoulder, and the blue ribbon from the track meet. None of that had any use where I was going. A room could keep its own ghosts.

I checked the desk one last time. Toothbrush and paste from the caddy. My coat was already downstairs on the hook, but I took my spare boots and shoved them into the bottom corners of the duffel.

The bag was heavy when I pulled the copper wire closed. Thirty pounds of fabric, wire, and paper. My entire life reduced to what could hang from one shoulder without tearing the seam.

I lifted the strap and settled it across my collarbone. The canvas smelled of attic dust and cold salt.

At the top of the stairs, the house was silent except for the low hum of the refrigerator. I started down.