The Christmas Note by Donna VanLiere Read Free Book Online

go through their parents’ things with a swelling sense of grief from love and pride and gratefulness, but then there are people like me, who move things aside with their toe. This gulf of loss is different from grief. It’s mostly dread and disappointment and regret.
    “I’ll take the kitchen,” Gretchen says, startling me. She hands the box of garbage bags to me. “Should I ask you about what to save or—”
    “If there’s anything that can be used again, I’ll take it to the secondhand store. From what I see, there’s nothing here that I’ll want.” She nods and makes her way to the kitchen while I move to the living room.
    The garbage feels sticky on my hand, and I use another garbage bag as a glove. I’m disgusted with every piece I throw away. “You lived like a pig, Ramona.” I shove a hamburger wrapper and nearly empty bottle of booze into the bag along with a half-eaten can of Vienna sausages and a stack of magazines. “You never, ever, ever lived like a human being!” I sweep the garbage off the sofa into the bag and kick up the cushions, shaking my head. The couch is full of garbage and dried pieces of food. I throw the garbage away and stare at the stained sofa cushions that are destroyed. In an instant I pick one up and heave it out the window. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Gretchen, frozen at the kitchen sink, watching me. I lunge for the other two cushions and hurl them after the first. They lie on the asphalt below, looking small and ruined.
    “Are you okay?”
    Gretchen hasn’t moved from the kitchen, but I can’t turn to look at her. I nod and push more garbage into bags. On top of the TV is a picture in a black frame of Ramona and me standing in front of an enormous plastic cow. We saw it in front of a roadside restaurant as we were moving from one apartment to the next. “What a sight!” Ramona said. “Let’s get our picture.” The sun was bright, so I’m squinting up at the camera and Ramona is holding her cigarette aloft, looking as if she’d just taken me to Disney World. Propped up against that photo is a smaller shot of us taken in front of a stunted Christmas tree strung with popcorn next to an RCA television set on a metal stand. I glance around the room trying to spot any other photos or keepsakes, but there are none. The door closes and I turn behind me to see Gretchen putting two empty boxes on the counter.
    “I ran down to the Dumpster to see if I could find a box for the plates and pots.”
    I didn’t even know she had left. The dishes and pans clank as she fits them into the box, and she steps into the living room. “I threw away all the food. There wasn’t much of anything but it was all open and stale or—”
    “Ruined,” I say.
    “Everything she had is here in the boxes if you want to—”
    I don’t let her finish. “No. I don’t want it.”
    We work in silence for the next hour or so. Gretchen hauls bags of trash down to the Dumpster, and a couple of times I hear her talking in the stairwell on her phone. Checking on her kids, I suppose. Three more trips are taken to the Dumpster, and on her return she walks beyond me to the bedroom and I hear her snap open a trash bag. I finish pawing through the garbage in the living room and then stand in the bedroom doorway. Gretchen has taken the sheets off the bed and is pushing the mattress off to see if there’s anything under it. I help her lean it against the wall, and together we prop the box springs on it. The bed’s metal railing looks like a picture frame around the trash that was under the bed. “Unbelievable,” I say, snapping up a bag and pitching cans and bottles into it.
    Gretchen works through a stack of magazines and papers on Ramona’s nightstand as I reach for the garbage and clothes inside the closet. At one time, Ramona had nice skirts, dresses, and slacks that fell over her curves and long legs in soft lines. I pick up worn shirts, stretched-out sweaters, and holey pants and