3: 3
3
Three days before I was set to leave.
When I got home from work, six black trash bags were piled up outside the new place.
One of them wasn't tied off all the way.
A notebook I recognized was sticking out of the top.
I bent down and pulled it free, and only then realized every bag was stuffed with my things.
College textbooks, award certificates, books my teachers had given me, and the little cloth pouch my grandmother had sewn for me before she died.
All of it crammed in together.
Plenty of the pages were already creased.
I pushed the door open.
Mom was directing the workers to clear out my boxes from the balcony.
"Why is all my stuff out there?"
She didn't even turn her head.
"Your sister's getting engaged."
"His family's coming in three days. The new place has to look decent."
"Those old books and notebooks are just sitting there useless anyway, so we might as well get rid of them all at once."
I stayed where I was.
"Those are my things."
Dad frowned at me.
"You work away from home. What do you need to keep so much stuff here taking up space for?"
"Leila's got a lot to get ready for the wedding. Of course the balcony goes to her dowry first."
My sister, Leila Fox, came out of her room carrying a set of jewelry she'd just bought.
She saw the trash bags out in the hall, and guilt washed over her face at once.
"Veronica, don't blame Mom and Dad."
"How about I move your things back into my room? It'll be a little tight, but that's okay."
Mom cut in immediately.
"You're about to get married. How could you put up with something like that?"
She turned to look at me.
"Veronica's been able to rough it since she was little. Her stuff can just as well go in storage."
I didn't argue anymore.
I just went out into the hall and dug through the trash bags one by one.
The file envelope I needed to report for my assignment was gone.
Inside were a copy of my diploma, my medical report, and the onboarding paperwork stamped by my employer.
If even one piece was missing, I might not be able to report on time.
I asked Mom, "Where's the manila envelope from my desk drawer?"
She thought about it for a long time.
"What envelope?"
My brother, Harvey Fox, sat on the couch playing a game, not looking up.
"You mean the one with a bunch of papers in it?"
"I took that to sell as scrap this afternoon."
My head snapped toward him.
"Where did you sell it?"
My tone startled him, but he got righteous again fast.
"The recycling depot by the back gate."
"It was all wastepaper anyway. I even got thirty-six bucks for it."
By the time I ran downstairs, it had started raining again.
The depot owner was loading bundled cardboard onto a truck.
I didn't care about the dirty water all over the ground. I knelt in the pile of scrap paper and dug through it.
The edge of a box sliced open the back of my hand.
Broken glass drove into my palm.
Blood mixed with rain, dripping one drop at a time onto the pulped, waterlogged pages.
I don't know how long I searched, but I finally found the file envelope at the very bottom.
The seal had already split open.
One corner of the medical report was wet, and the water had blurred the spot where my employer's stamp had been.
I ran back home clutching it.
But the living room was already filled with things for my sister's engagement.
Gold jewelry, a gown, wedding candy.
Mom and Dad stood around Leila, discussing the dowry.
Nobody noticed my hands were covered in blood.
Leila was the first to see the envelope in my arms.
"Veronica, you found it?"
I nodded.
But Mom's face darkened.
"So you found it. Who's this show for?"
"Leila's in-laws are coming tomorrow. You're covered in filth. Don't hang around the living room."
I looked down at my palm, still oozing blood.
And I thought of the year I got into college.
I'd wanted to buy a suitcase that cost two hundred.
But Mom said the family was putting three kids through school at once, so we had to save every dollar.
In the end, she gave me the old case my sister had worn out.
The handle only pulled out halfway.
One of the wheels was missing.
When I dragged it into the college campus, the bottom scraped against the ground with an awful screech.
And now, two brand-new suitcases sat at my sister's feet.
One for the dowry.
One for the honeymoon.
Leila followed my gaze, as if she'd just remembered something.
"Veronica, that white case has gotten dusty."
"Wipe it clean for me in a bit, and don't scuff it. It was expensive."
Dad stood in the middle of the living room, directing the moving company to carry Leila's dowry cabinet onto the balcony.
He pointed at my two remaining boxes.
"Take these away too."
"Don't leave them cluttering up the new place."
I looked at the boxes of my sister's gold jewelry, her gown, her wedding candy.
Then I looked at the reporting documents in my arms, the ones that had almost been sold off as scrap.
And suddenly I found it funny.
That night, I taped the file envelope back together.
Then I took the old suitcase with the broken wheel out of its box.
I didn't wipe down my sister's new case.
I just packed my own clothes into the old one, piece by piece.
Three days from now.
I would move out of this big house I had paid for, for good.
