When my dad died, we all reacted in different ways. My sister seemed to take on our cumulative emotional reaction: she cried so much she seemed to be shriveling right in front of our eyes. I sat quiet, silent, angry, refusing to grieve, because it seemed like to do so would be giving everyone what they wanted. My mother began to organize.
Two days after the funeral, she was moving through the house with a buzzing intensity, the energy coming off of her palpable enough to set your teeth chattering. I stood in my bedroom door, watching as she ripped through our linen closet, tossing out all the nubby washcloths and old twin sheets that fit beds we’d long ago given away. In the kitchen, anything that didn’t have a match—the lone jelly jar glass, one freebie plate commemorating Christmas at Cracker Barrel—was tossed, clanking and breaking its way into the trash bag she dragged behind her from room to room, until it was too full to budge. Nothing was safe. I came home from school one day to find that my closet had been organized, rifled through, clothes I hadn’t worn in a while just gone. It was becoming clear to me that I shouldn’t bother to get too attached to anything. Turn your back and you lose it. Just like that.
The EZ stuff was among the last to go. On a Saturday morning, about a week after the funeral, she was up at six A.M., piling things in the driveway for Goodwill. By nine, she’d emptied out most of the garage: the old treadmill, lawn chairs, and boxes of never-used Christmas ornaments. As much as I’d been worried about her as she went on this tear, I was even more concerned about what would happen when she was all done, and the only mess left was us.
I walked across the grass to the driveway, sidestepping a stack of unopened paint cans. “All of this is going?” I asked, as she bent down over a box of stuffed animals.
“Yes,” she said. “If you want to claim anything, better do it now.”
I looked across these various artifacts of my childhood. A pink bike with a white seat, a broken plastic sled, some life jackets from the boat we’d sold years ago. None of it meant anything, and all of it was important. I had no idea what to take.
Then I saw the EZ box. At the top, balled up and stuffed in the corner, was the self-heating hand towel my dad had considered a Miracle of Science only a few weeks earlier. I picked it up carefully, squeezing the thin fabric between my fingers.
“Oh, Macy.” My mother, the stuffed animal box in her arms, frowned at me. A giraffe I vaguely remembered as belonging to my sister was poking out the top. “You don’t want that stuff, honey. It’s junk.”
“I know,” I said, looking down at the towel.
The Goodwill guys showed up then, beeping the horn as they pulled into the driveway. My mother waved them in, then walked over to point out the various piles. As they conferred, I wondered how many times a day they went to people’s houses to take things away—if it was different when it was after a death, or if junk was junk, and they couldn’t even tell.
“Make sure you get it all,” my mother called over her shoulder as she started across the grass. The two guys went over to the treadmill, each of them picking up an end. “I have a donation . . . just let me get my checkbook.”
As she went inside I stood there for a second, the guys loading up things from all around me. They were making a last trip for the Christmas tree when one of them, a shorter guy with red hair, nodded toward the box at my feet.
“That, too?” he asked.
I was about to tell him yes. Then I looked down at the towel and the box with all the other crap in it, and remembered how excited my dad was when each of them arrived, how I could always hear him coming down the hallway, pausing by the dining room, the den, the kitchen, just looking for someone to share his new discovery with. I was always so happy when it was me.
“No,” I said as I leaned over and picked up the box. “This one’s mine.”
I took it up to my room, then dragged the desk chair over to my closet and climbed up. There was a panel above the top shelf that opened up into the attic, and I slid it open and pushed the box into the darkness.
With my dad gone, we had assumed our relationship with EZ Products was over. But then, about a month after the funeral, another package showed up, a combination pen/pocket stapler. We figured he’d ordered it right before the heart attack, his final purchase—until the next month, when a decorative rock/ sprinkler arrived. When my mother called to complain, the customer service person apologized profusely. Because of my father’s high buying volume, she explained, he had been bumped up to Gold Circle level, which meant that he received a new product every month to peruse, no obligation to buy. They’d take him off the list, absolutely, no problem.
But still the stuff kept coming, every month, just like clockwork, even after we canceled the credit card they had on file. I had my own theory on this, one I shared, like so much else, with no one. My dad had died the day after Christmas, when all the gifts had already been put into use or away. He’d given my mom a diamond bracelet, my sister a mountain bike, but when it was my turn, he’d given me a sweater, a couple of CDs, and an I.O.U. written on gold paper in his messy scrawl. More to come, it had said, and he’d nodded as I read the words, reassuring me. Soon. “It’s late, but it’s special,” he’d said to me. “You’ll love it.”
I knew this was true. I would love it, because my dad just knew me, knew what made me happy. My mother claimed that when I was little I cried anytime my dad was out of my sight, that I was often inconsolable if anyone but he made my favorite meal, the bright orange macaroni-and-cheese mix they sold at the grocery store three for a dollar. But it was more than just emotional stuff. Sometimes, I swear, it was like we were on the same wavelength. Even that last day, when he’d given up trying to rouse me from bed, I’d sat up those five minutes later as if something had summoned me. Maybe, by then, his chest was already hurting. I’d never know.