"Where exactly do you want this box of crap?" Boris asked, carrying in a rather large box, standing in what would become Whittle's new living room. She turned and looked at him, hands on her hips, thinking.
"I'm gonna say to just drop it anywhere, really," Whittle said, beginning to pick at her teeth, "Is there much left?" "There's a few tiny boxes out here, but I don't know that my frail old man bones can handle it. I'm so weak and my body is just a mere husk of the strapping once brash lad I had been in my glory days. Ah yes, my glory days, let me tell you, I was bold and daring, head full of hair and built like an ox. In those days, you could get a piece of pie for a nickel I tell you, and-" "Shut. Up," Whittle said, laughing as she pulled a small box cutter from her back pocket and started to undo one of the boxes on the floor. Boris chuckled to himself before bringing in the last few small boxes and leaned against the couch, pulling his cap off and exhaling. He glanced around the apartment and nodded. "This is nice," he said, "You found a good place. It's clean, in a seemingly safe neighborhood, I like it. Are you...feeling weird about the whole thing? I was kind of surprised when you asked me to help you move, I gotta be honest, I hadn't expected you to take my advice to heart so quickly." "Well," Whittle said, kneeling down on the floor over the box and pulling out books, a strap on her overalls slipping off her shoulder, "I don't know, I guess? It was hard, believe me, he wasn't happy about it, but after what we talked about I realized that I absolutely had to do it. I had to make a change of some kind, you know? You can't continue living a life that stops you from living." Boris nodded, his eyelids lowering as he became lost in thought. Yes. What a true statement that was. *** "She didn't even want to do soccer! She hated soccer! But you wouldn't listen to her, you told her team sports are great just because they were great for you!" Boris shouted. "Don't you even fucking dare!" Lorraine responded, "You were just as adamant about her sticking to her responsibilities as I was! How dare you try and pin this solely on me! Just because you gave up on what you wanted to do doesn't mean she should learn to do the same!" "Fuck you! You're a fucking monster! You never ever listen to either one of us, and it shows now more than ever!" Boris shouted, and then the crying started. He slouched his shoulders and glanced over them towards her bedroom before softly adding, "I'll go." "Why can't I go comfort her?" Lorraine asked, folding her arms. "Because she never asks for you," Boris replied. *** Boris walked around the front of the couch, hands in his pockets, looking at everything in Whittle's new place, as he slowly made his way towards the small round table she'd set up near the kitchen. She was on the floor in front of the table, elbow deep in a box of books, as Boris pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. He sighed and simply watched her, thinking about how much she reminded him of both his daughter and his ex-wife. Perhaps not in physical stature or anything, but definitely in attitude. Whittle had his daughters earnestness and his ex-wifes stubbornness, both traits he admired very much, especially when combined like they had been here. Whittle pulled out a collection of large books and held them up triumphantly, almost like they were a trophy she'd just won. Boris cocked his head to the side, somewhat confused, until she grinned at him, stood up and sat with him at the table, opening the first giant book in front of them. "Yearbooks," she said, "This was my freshman year." "Oh?" Boris asked, looking into it with her as she skimmed photos in a collage until she found herself and pointed herself out. "There I am, god I was such a dweeb," Whittle said. "You were in band?" Boris asked. "Yeah, I played the cello. I still do, from time to time," Whittle said, "But it's more a hobby than a profession. It was one of those things my parents made me do, pick an instrument and learn it, and it seemed like the most interesting, outside of saxophone which wasn't in band, sadly." "What kind of band class doesn't have a saxophone?" Boris asked, sounding genuinely disgusted, making Whittle laugh. "I know, right?!" she replied, "God these were the absolute worst years of my life..." "Well, don't worry, the years get even worse, trust me on that," Boris said, making her smirk as she opened a pizza box on the table and picking up a slice, biting into it as she skimmed through a few more pages. Boris got up and got himself a glass of water, looking out the window over her kitchenette sink until he heard her exclaim something again. When he turned and headed back, Whittle was pointing excitedly at something in the book, almost squealing. "That was Garth Harris!" she said, "God, I had a huge crush on him when I was in school. You really remind me of him, honestly. He was intelligent, but kind of a dick, but he was also really open and insightful." Boris thought about this for a moment, and couldn't decide if he liked reminding her of someone else or was angry she didn't see him as his own person instead of a likeness. Either way, he supposed, it didn't matter, as long as he had her friendship. Besides, wasn't her really substituting Chrissy for Ellen, in a lot of ways? Trying to undo all the bad parenting he'd done to his own daughter? So who was he to argue. Boris sighed and pulled a slice of pizza from the box and bit into it. "You know, you think those memories are the ones that matter," Boris said, "But honestly, they're not. The memories that you hold close aren't the big ones; weddings, funerals, birthdays, holidays, graduations, that kind of stuff. No, the ones you actually wind up cherishing, polishing in your head til they gleam like a mental trophy, are the ones that seemed so insignificant at the time. Just really good days, where you had a really good time. Random dinners, certain shopping trips, that sort of stuff." "Stuff like this, right now," Whittle said, looking up from her yearbook at him, "Like this will someday be a treasured memory. Not the whole 'breaking up with my boyfriend and moving to a new apartment' aspect of it, just this, you and me, sitting here with a pizza and talking." "...Sure, exactly," Boris said, smiling, "That's fair to claim. Though, if you don't mind, please try and remember me as much more handsome than I am, maybe even fairly rich." "No problem rockafella," Whittle replied, laughing as she continued to flip through her yearbook. *** Ellen was lying in her bed, reading a book when Boris came in with her afternoon snack. Ellen put her book down as Boris sat on the side of her bed and set the tray on his lap. He sighed and cut her sandwich in half, handing her a glass of juice, which she gladly took and sipped on as he continued cutting her sandwich. "Your mother wants to know why you never call for her," Boris said. "Because mom never makes me feel better, only worse," Ellen said, "I don't need to feel worse right now." "You know she's just upset about what happened, right? That she-" "I don't like mom," Ellen said, surprising her father before looking down at her juice glass and, lowering her voice, added, "I don't even really like you." Boris's heart cracked in that moment. He finished cutting her sandwich, handed her the entire tray, ruffled her hair and then exited. He immediately hurried down the hall to the bathroom, shut the door behind him and sat on the toilet lid, crying quietly into his arms. He couldn't even be angry or upset with her, because he completely understood, and, quite frankly, didn't like himself very much either, so why should he expect her to? Especially after what he'd done to her. It was all his fault, no matter how much blame he wanted to push onto Lorraine or extenuating circumstances, it was his fault. What kind of a family was this? He didn't want this. He didn't want any of this. And it wasn't long after that that Boris packed up and moved out, only coming around to see her Ellen once a week, and always giving Lorraine whatever money he could spare to help with house or medical expenses. That was the day that broke Boris, and it was also a moment he'd never forget. As he told Whittle, it wasn't the moments you'd expect to remember that you remember, it wasn't the accident he recalled. It was the moment his own daughter told him she didn't like him. That was the moment he remembered. *** It was getting late, Boris realized as he checked his watch. He should probably start to head back to the home. He sighed, ate one more slice of pizza, had another root beer and then decided to call it a night. As he stood up and slid back into his jacket, Whittle stood up as well and walked him to the door. "Thanks for helping me, not just moving in but like, in making the decision to change my life too," Whittle said. "My pleasure. You know me, I'm always willing to give advice I'll thoroughly ignore myself," Boris said, and, without warning, Whittle hugged him tightly. He was taken aback for a moment and didn't know how to respond before realizing he should likely hug her back, so he started to. They stayed that way for a minute or two until she finally let him go, they said good night and he was on his way. Boris took the bus all the way back to the home, and when he finally arrived, the only person still up and in the common area was Carol, reading a book. Boris sat down in a chair beside her and exhaled heavily, taking his hat off and running his hand through what was left of his hair. "Busy day down at the office?" Carol asked, smirking. "...what's the one moment you can't shake that surprises you? You know, a moment that theoretically you would imagine you wouldn't remember or have considered important down the road." "Hmmm," Carol said, placing her thumb between the pages of her book and resting it in her lap, "I guess...I guess that honor would likely go to the time I was in my mid twenties and had to have a tooth pulled because it split in half while I was eating candy. Wound up dating that dentist for a few years, all because he made a tooth pun and I thought it was funny enough to base an entire relationship on. And even though it ended when he was hit by a train, which is the part you'd think I'd remember most of all, it was the start of our relationship, not the death of it, that I recall with ease." "...jesus, you're kind of a bummer," Boris said. "That's rich, coming from you." "You ever think you might make some more memories?" Boris asked and Carol laughed. "I'm making memories every day! There's no cutoff on memory making, Boris. Just because I get old doesn't make my new memories any less worthy than my old ones. You just have to decide which memories are worth remembering, and continue to make them. I'm gonna go to bed." Carol stood up, tucked her book under her arm, yawned and then put a hand on Boris's shoulder. "You make the memory, to memory doesn't make you," she said, and with that she turned on her heel and headed off to bed, leaving Boris to sit there and contemplate everything she'd just said. Later on, when Boris himself had retired, lying in bed and looking up at his ceiling, he couldn't help but try and think of a different memory, any memory, worth remembering more than the time his own daughter told him she didn't like him. He thought about when he first signed her up for soccer. She was apprehensive, she wasn't that into sports, but he said it would be fine. He bought a brand new ball and everything, and took her out into the backyard to practice. And despite her grievances towards sports, despite her lack of athletic ability, he could remember her having a lot of fun that day. He could remember the both of them having a lot of fun that day. After they finished, they went inside and had some ice cream before Lorraine got home from work, and sitting there at the kitchen table, she said to him, "I guess it wasn't that bad. Thanks dad." Thanks dad. That was the best he'd ever gotten. But it was better than the other memory. And with that Boris managed to shut his eyes, and go to sleep.
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Golden Years follows the exploits of a bunch of old people in a retirement home as they try to have fun, relax or come to terms with the soon to be end of their lives. Archives
April 2024
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