Page 100 of Those Two Words

“I’m not sad, spud.”

“Are you mad?”

“No, not mad.”

“Then why is your face doing this?” she asks and scrunches her eyebrows together and pouts her lips. Even on her cute little face, it’s not a good look.

“I’m just disappointed in myself.”

“What’s spis-a-pointed mean?”

“Dis-ap-point-ed means I’m not happy with something I’ve said or done,” I explain.

“Are you spisappointed in me?”

Jesus, will I ever say the right thing to women today?

I stand and round the counter, bending at the knees until we’re eye level.

“Not you, sweet girl. Never you. Not when you draw such pretty pictures like this,” I say, pointing to the big blob of pink and yellow.

“It’s me and JoJo,” she announces proudly and shoves it in my face. She peeks around the edge of the paper, her bottom lip curling. “I miss her. Can I play Barbies with her again? That was fun.”

“We’ll see her soon.” Standing up, I stretch my arms above my head and decide I need to distract myself until Jo is ready to talk. I ruffle Lottie’s hair, when a thought pops into my mind. “Hey. Why don’t we make a fort, snuggle up underneath it, and watch Tangled?”

She gasps and drops her pencils on the table, before scrambling down from her stool in a frenzy. She runs out of the kitchen, shouting for my mom, and I take that as a yes.

“Let me grab the sheets,” I call and make my way upstairs.

Walking into my mom’s room, I search the closet for some spare sheets and pillows. When I don’t find any, I try the one in the guest room across the hall and nearly get flattened by all the crap piled high and leaning precariously on the shelves.

Board Games. Cassette tapes. Old baby booties. Fishing poles. You name it, it’s in here.

I’m about to give up the hunt, when I spot a pile of white sheets hidden behind an old boom box and…no way. The sight of my dad’s old Polaroid camera pulls at my heartstrings, and I wonder when my mom last cleared out this space.

Carefully, I pull the sheets down and try not to bring the contents of the closet crashing to the floor. Just as the sheets are freed from the carnage, my elbow knocks a stack of shoe boxes, and they tumble to the ground. A flurry of photos and pieces of paper float down to my feet.

“Shit,” I curse and bend to tidy up the mess.

When I have most of the contents stacked in neat piles, I shuffle them back into their worn, cardboard homes, but pause when I see four envelopes, one with my name on it and the rest with each of my siblings’ names on them. I pick up the one addressed to me and turn it over, inspecting it to work out what it is and who it’s from. My name is written out in big, block letters, so it’s hard to decipher whose handwriting it is.

The longer I look at it, the more my curiosity gets the better of me. It has my name on it, so it’s clearly meant for me. I tear the seal of the white envelope and pull out a folded piece of paper, but before I finish unfolding it, something flutters to the floor.

A Polaroid photo.

It’s lying face down, but when I turn it over, a hearty laugh mixed with astonishment breaks loose. Looking up at me from the monochrome film is a photo of a young boy and girl. They look the same age, and the boy is leaning in and planting a kiss awkwardly on the girl’s cheek. A look of shock and disgust on her face. Even in black and white you can make out the flush of her cheeks.

I don’t blame Johanna; I was a gross kid.

I’ve never seen this picture before, and even though it was taken almost thirty years ago, I remember the night clear as day. I trace my finger across the black-and-white image, amazed that my dad managed to capture this moment.

Our first kiss.

But not our last.

I admire the photograph for a few moments, when I remember the piece of paper in my hand.

Once it’s unfolded, I recognize the handwriting immediately. Probably because it’s the same handwriting that taught me my ABCs.

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