The Hope in Leaving by Barbara Williams

Author:Barbara Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: memoir, actor, actress, Canadian
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Published: 2016-02-18T15:53:06+00:00

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Box of Treasures

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Back at Ryan Street, I’m feeling Randy strongly right now, he’s challenging me. I’m afraid of heights but if he jumped off a cliff I would follow. He once branded his arm with an iron. I outdid him. I let him hold the iron down on the inside of my forearm for several seconds, and I still have a brown iron-shaped scar with little circles for the steam holes.

Now he’s challenging me to face the room where he died. I’m guessing Mom didn’t open the window because there’s a powerful smell of disinfectant emanating from inside. I crack the door. The little cot with a grey flannel blanket is unmade. Metal venetian blinds are closed. On the small dresser beside the bed is a metal ashtray coated with ashes.

Mom’s light is off but I know she’s awake, I can feel her thoughts writhing in the dark.

I give up and go back to the chocolate box, to crinkled photographs of Mom’s family from when she was little. She’s like a scrawny kitten. Tinker is blonde and radiant, destined for California. The middle sister, Mary, is more plain. I’m mesmerized by this proof of Mom’s childhood. My grandmother has a strong body and those big hands. I used to think her face was so beautiful, but after I found out she was a suicide, I could only see her suffering. Granddad’s face and physique are my idea of perfect. His body is lean and muscular, and he has a wide forehead above even features. There’s nothing excessive about him.

I remember the day I came home from school to find a big box sitting in the center of our living room. Inside were these photographs, along with a treasure trove of Granddad’s possessions.

I remember every item wrapped in newspaper and cushioned in shredded strips of more newspaper. I wonder if Granddad packed everything before he died. That would be in character, to leave no loose ends. On top was a leather pouch of Player’s tobacco, with a shriveled apple peel inside, still keeping the tobacco moist two years later. A hunting knife in a leather case had a razor-sharp blade, narrowed from years of honing, and a handle of wood and bone. I’d seen it hanging from Granddad’s belt. There was a rough tweed suit with leather patches on the elbows, and an archery set with real arrows. Randy and I would use our chickens as targets and would end up having to pluck and gut them.

There were three paintings. I recognized the one of Lake Louise because Granddad told me it was the same Alpine-blue color of his car. One painting showed a boat on the shore of the Whirlpool River. I knew that because Mom told me about the big rock they used to swim to. Then there was a landscape of a mountain thick with evergreens, under an azure sky and titanium clouds. The colors were all described in notebooks, with each element of each painting alphabetically indexed. S=Sky: 2 pts azure blue, C = clouds: titanium white.

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