What the Crate Remembered

Three sets of initials should not have been enough to bother me. The names themselves mean nothing, but someone painted them neatly beneath the ramp, expecting the wood to protect them. That is the sort of quiet faith I have never had the patience for. They marked what belonged to them. I mostly leave places before they can ask what I am doing there.

I keep wondering whether Essie knew the crate was there. She held her nerve better than I did. I hated standing between that grey sedan and the find, as if the driver could plainly see guilt hiding in every movement. Perhaps I looked obvious. Perhaps I wanted to be seen stopping them. I cannot always tell the difference between protection and vanity.

The rain made everything feel close. For a second, I remembered being twenty and standing beside a pool while everybody expected me to want nothing except the water. The shame of that memory is sharper than the bruise from yesterday’s fight. I could hide that one under rope marks and restlessness. There is no useful task for the other kind.

I did not eat enough at the counter. I noticed because I reached for the plate once and then gave up. Maybe the sadness only emptied me; maybe I was afraid that noticing the initials had reopened something I had spent years insisting was closed.

I tied the crate down because leaving it exposed felt cruel. I also hated that choice. Caring felt too much like admitting those men had mattered, or that my own buried years still might. I would deny saying any of this tomorrow.