The hallway was choked with cardboard boxes. Arthur, flushed with the effort, shoved another one onto the top shelf, the dust settling on his thinning crown like a gray frost.
Why are we keeping all this junk? he grumbled, descending the wobbling stepladder.
It isnt junk, Ethel said softly but firmly, seated on the floor amid an old suitcase bristling with papers. Its memory.
Memory, Arthur scoffed. That memorys hurting my back already. Youll throw it all away in a year. Theres no room.
Ethel didnt answer. Her fingers brushed the worn leather cover of an elderly album. She opened it.
Look, she murmured, as if the clatter around them didnt exist. Firstgrade. Remember?
Arthur shuffled over reluctantly. In the yellowed photograph a little girl in white bows squinted against the sunlight.
I remember, he muttered, softer now. You were crying about a torn apron.
This was the scout camp
Greenside, Arthur said, peering over her shoulder. You brought back that shell from there. Its still somewhere in this mess.
He went back to the boxes, his enthusiasm drained. Ethel turned page after pageyouth, university, their wedding. Arthur in an impossibly broad tuxedo, she in a lace motherofthebride dress. Young, smooth, smiling at the camera, oblivious to the cramped flat two decades later, his perpetual muttering, her quiet resentment that romance had been left on paper.
Careful! Ethel suddenly shouted.
Arthur brushed a small cardboard box with his shoulder, and its contents spilled onto the linoleum. While he grumbled and began stacking the books, Ethel lifted a tiny velvetlined casket from the floor and pried the lid open.
Inside, on a bed of cotton, lay the same Greenside shell, a few dulled scout badges, a dried mimosa twig and a folded schoolnotebook page.
Whats this? Arthur asked once the floor was clear.
Ethel unfolded the paper. In a childs diligent hand it read: My list of wishes. 1. Become a doctor. 2. Learn to play the guitar. 3. Visit Paris. 4. Marry for true love.
She handed the sheet to him without a word. He scanned it, his expression softening before a sardonic snort escaped him.
Didnt become a doctor. Still cant strum a guitar. Paris isnt on the horizon As for love He trailed off, rubbing his aching back. You didnt become a doctor, but now my spine aches like an old mans from hauling your archives.
Ethel took the sheet back, lingered on item four, then looked at Arthurs weary, dustcovered face, at his hands that had just lifted heavy boxes to clear space in her wardrobe.
Marrying for true love doesnt mean living in perpetual romance, Arthur, she said quietly. It means when your husbands back hurts, his wife gives him a massage. And he, in turn, washes the dishes.
She folded the page carefully, slipped it back into the velvet box and shut it.
Fine, she sighed. Maybe youre right about some of it. Certain things can still be untangled.
She set the box aside, on top of the pile of valuables that would never be tossed. Then she walked to Arthur, wrapped her arms around him, and pressed her cheek against his stubbly jaw.
Thank you, she whispered. For everything.
Arthur froze for a heartbeat, then awkwardly ran a hand through her hair.
Come off it whats this all about? he muttered. Youll still rub my back, wont you?
Ill remember, Ethel smiled, leaning into his shoulder.
Both knew the Paris and the guitar would stay on that yellowed page, a relic of a past that belonged nowhere but the attic. Yet here, in the dusty, cramped hallway, the scent was not of dreams but of livedin life. And that, in its plain, unphotographed way, was a happiness enough to fill the room.
