Comfort & Joy

A white bag full of ruined clothes.

For the next week, these two items—along with the memories they represent—sit on my dresser.

I look at them every time I walk past, but I don’t touch.

No way.

Until my memories of Daniel and Bobby have faded completely, I will ignore the ticket and the bag. By the time I finally reach for them, they will be cold, their power stripped by the passage of days. Someday I will pay the change fee and use my first-class ticket to fly to some other destination. Maybe Florida or Hawaii.

I am studiously ignoring the bag when the phone rings.

I answer quickly, turning my back on my dresser. “Hello?”

“Mrs. Candellaro?”

I wince at the name and all that it implies. Perhaps, my summer project will be to return to my maiden name. “Yes?”

“This is Ann Morford. How are you?”

“Fine,” I say to my realtor. “You want to renew the listing?”

“Actually, I’m calling with good news. We have an offer on your house. Two hundred ninety two thousand five hundred dollars. I guess when you survived the crash, your house changed from bad luck to good luck. ”

“Wow. ” I sit on my bed, stunned.

“Do you want to make a counter offer? See if they’ll come up to full price?”

It takes less than ten seconds to make up my mind. I know a second chance when I see one. “No. I’ll take the deal. ”

The realtor and I talk for a few more minutes about details. Earnest monies and closing dates and the like. I tell her I can be out of this house by Friday if they’d like, and I mean it. At the realization that I finally can leave, I’m desperate to get going. She faxes me the paperwork, which I sign immediately and re-send.

As soon as I’m done with that, I head for the kitchen to pour myself a celebratory glass of wine. I don’t make it past my dresser, though.

This time, I’m caught. The sale of my house and the prospect of moving has changed things somehow. I’m finally moving, changing my direction. The idea of it makes me feel indestructible.

I grab the bag and carry it to the bed where I sit, staring down at it. Then, very slowly, I open it.

The first thing I see is my left shoe. Just the one. I pick it up. The black-and-white Keds tennis shoe is in perfect condition. No stains or rips or mud.

My sweater has a few dark stains that I know could be either mud or blood or a mixture of both. It isn’t ruined, though. A normal person, looking at this sweater would never guess its history. There’s something oddly comforting in that.

Then I pull out my jeans.

The right leg has been cut and ripped from hem to waist. Dried blood makes the material stiff and discolored.

I reach into the front left pocket and pull out a wadded up Von’s grocery store receipt, an airport parking stub, and seven dollars in cash. In two back pockets I find some spare change and a paper clip. Exactly the things I expected to find.

In the other front pocket, I feel something odd. I reach in farther, find something cold and hard. I pull it out and stare down at my hand.

In my palm is a small, white arrowhead.

I close my eyes and count to ten. When I look down again, the arrowhead is still there.

It can’t be. You know it can’t.

You didn’t walk away from the crash.

Yet I’m holding this arrowhead. With everything I am, everything I think and feel, I believe this.