The Box of Memories
In 1980, young Tommy finds a shoe box beneath his parents’ bed – and gets into a lot of trouble over it. But he is not told why his mummy is so upset and his daddy so angry. He, and his sister Liz, don’t discover the truth until 2025, after their parents have died. It is a memory box: read on to discover what it is all about …
1980
‘What’s in this box?’ little Tommy said, pulling at the shoe box he had just discovered under Mummy and Daddy’s bed. It was Saturday morning, so it was family snuggle time, the only time in the week when Tommy and his sister got to spend time in Mummy and Daddy’s room. Little Lizzy, Tommy’s sister, was lying in-between Mummy and Daddy, but Tommy himself had decided to be an explorer. He was a big boy now he went to school. He was learning how to read and, one day soon, he would be able to write his own name.
‘What box?’ Daddy yawned.
Tommy pulled, and tugged the box out into the light of the room. He was on Mummy’s side, so it was Mummy who saw it first. He was just trying to lift it onto the bed, when Mummy said: ‘Oh, my God! John, he’s got the memory box.’
‘You leave that alone!’ Daddy flung back the covers and erupted from his bed, flying round towards Tommy. Tommy dropped the box and backed away. Daddy never shouted, Mummy was upset, and Lizzy had started crying.
‘Jesus Christ! He’s even opened it!’ Daddy bent over the box, and started putting all the stuff back into the box. Tommy watched. He had his fist in his mouth, tears in his eyes, and his heart thumping. What had he done wrong? He just didn’t understand. He was still going backwards. He bumped into the bedroom door. It wasn’t a hard bump, but it was enough. He started crying.
‘Oh, not you as well. Go to your room. Now!’ Daddy shouted, his face all red. It took Tommy two goes to open the door and flee to his own bedroom, his own bed. He pulled the blankets over himself and curled into a ball. He heard Daddy talking to Mummy, he heard Lizzy being comforted; but no-one came to see him.
His tummy was rumbling, but he didn’t dare move. Mummy, Daddy and Lizzy were all up. They usually had a drink in Mummy and Daddy’s room – though Lizzy and Tommy usually sat down on the floor for theirs. Daddy made it. Mummy even had her breakfast in bed, while Daddy got the children ready for the day and gave them their breakfast downstairs.
Today had become different. The rest of the family had got up as if it was a normal day: not a Saturday.
Tommy waited. He heard Mummy say, ‘Shall I go and see him?’
‘No,’ Daddy had replied, ‘let him be. I’ll deal with it.’
Tommy heard Daddy’s heavy steps on the stairs. He curled himself tighter and tighter. He wanted to be invisible. Daddy opened his bedroom door. Daddy came into the room. Tommy heard him cross the floor to his bed.
‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!’ Tommy yelled as his bed-covers were pulled back, ‘I didn’t mean to! I –’ Then the tears came again, and he was howling. Daddy went to the window, pulled back the curtains and waited for Tommy’s sobs to become gulps.
‘It’s a nice day outside,’ he said, ‘would you like to go and play football in the park?’
Daddy didn’t even sound fed up – as he sometimes did when he came home from work. Cautiously, Tommy peered round and glanced at his father, who was standing there, with his arms folded, looking at him.
‘I think you might have to get washed and dressed first.’ Daddy said.
‘I’m sorry, Daddy.’ said Tommy, again.
‘We need to have a chat, I think,’ Daddy replied, ‘but first I want to say I’m sorry for shouting. You didn’t know, but that box is now somewhere else – it’s very precious to Mummy – and, when you’re old enough, perhaps she will tell you all about it. Now come here,’ Daddy stopped folding his arms, and opened them for a hug. He even knelt down. Tommy still didn’t know what he had done, but he clambered out of his bed, and allowed his daddy to put his arms about him.
The box wasn’t mentioned again.
2025
Tom and Liz had the task, as joint executors of their parents’ wills, of sorting through a lifetime of accumulated detritus. Dad hadn’t survived long after retiring, and Mum (they thought privately) had died of a broken heart. In later years, as is the way of all things, Tom and Liz had their own busy lives, their own families, and now, of course, both felt a little guilty at the number of times they had – or, rather, hadn’t – visited their parents.
The two siblings viewed the crowded sideboard covered with pictures of the two of them growing up, then the grandchildren doing the same.
‘At least Mum got to see your Amy getting her degree,’ Tom said, picking up one photo and handing it to his sister. ‘I’m assuming that’s one you’ll want to keep.’
Liz nodded, and added it to the pile of ‘her’ stuff in the corner of the room. Tom, not to be out-done, had a similar pile. Each room had to be gone through. Each room had more memories. Each room looked bereft – almost naked after Tom and Liz had moved things around. Mementos and items of sentimental value only. That was the other thing: the stuff they supposed, or hoped, might be of any actual monetary value, was also to be put to one side to be checked before disposal. They had been told there were options. One of them could buy out the other, and move in. But the house was out-of-date, and what with a new bathroom and kitchen, potential alterations to create an ensuite and a utility room; neither Tom nor Liz felt they could afford the upheaval. Never mind anything else, once the alterations had been done so a modern family could live in the house, it wouldn’t be Mum and Dad’s place anymore. The decision was to sell.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Liz, ‘this is tougher than I thought.’
‘H’mm,’ agreed Tom, ‘but whatever we decided, it would have to be done. I wonder what happened to the box?’
‘What box?’
‘Don’t you remember? Or were you too small?’ Tom took his sister through the story from when he’d been six – or was it only five? The trauma still lived with him. As a rule, their father had been a gentle soul, so for him to go off the deep end like that, was unusual.
‘And they never told me. Not that I asked! Much too scared.’ Tom grinned, but he recalled the fear of being curled up under the blankets all too easily.
‘Come on,’ said the practical Liz, ‘now you’ve thought about it, you won’t rest until it’s found. We haven’t done their bedroom, yet.’ She headed for the stairs, leaving the lounge half-finished. Tom, with only a momentary hesitation, followed.
This time, it was a dressing table covered with family photographs, but they weren’t looking at memories now. Nor at what items of clothing could be recycled from the wardrobe.
‘It’s an ordinary shoe box. With a detachable lid.’ said Tom, his memory crystal clear of it falling from his nerveless fingers as his father had loomed over him. But it wasn’t until he went to the opposite side of the bedroom from the wardrobe and turned round, that he noticed something wedged in-between the wooden top of the wardrobe and the ceiling.
‘Dad must have stood on a chair and shoved it as far as he could,’ Tom grunted as he tried to scrabble for the box with his fingers. He, too, was standing on a chair, his head to one side and he failed again to get any purchase on the box.
‘Why not get a broom or something and shove it over the other side and then grab it? I can tell you when to stop pushing.’ Sisters, even grown-up ones, can be so annoying at times – especially when they’re offering sensible, even the only workable, solutions. Tom stopped what he was doing and suggested, in his turn, that if Liz found the broom, it would save him having to get down from his precarious position.
Mission accomplished, they gingerly carried the dusty box to the bed, and opened it.
‘Baby stuff?’ Liz queried, looking at the booties, and the littlest cardigan, the rattle and the cards. ‘But why make a fuss about that? Tom?’
Tom was looking at a piece of paper. Silently, he handed it to his sister. She read it, and looked at him.
‘It seems,’ he said, ‘we had an older brother, who died before he was born. And they never told us.’