Page 10 of The Affair
She put down some of the photos she had in her hand, but getting out of the clutter she’d piled around herself was no easy task, and clearly, she needed help to find a way out.
Chuckling, I stepped forward and offered my assistance. “Hold on, Mom. Let me dig a path for you.”
She waited as I began moving things around to make room for her in the tiny space. Taking stacks of photo boxes and placing them back in the closet was the first step. The second was relocating the heavy boxes that surrounded the bed.
“Did you lift these yourself?” I asked.
Her silence spoke volumes.
Before she had the chance to utter an apology for her poor life choices, I noticed something familiar peeking out of one of the boxes.
“Is that what I think it is?” I asked, pulling on one of the cardboard flaps to reveal something I hadn’t seen since childhood.
A sad smile spread across my mom’s face as she confirmed my suspicions. “Nana’s journal. Well, one of them. There are a ton of boxes filled with them.”
I pulled the large black binder into my hands and felt the weight of it. How many times had I watched her writing at night, neatly recording the events of her day onto those plain white sheets of notebook paper?
“Look at all these entries!” I said, plopping down on the floor so I could open the binder and read a few.
Sunday, March 12, 1989
Cloudy
High 43, Low 36
Went to church and made dinner. Read the paper. After dinner, I embroidered. Gertrude stopped by with another quilt block for the senior citizen quilt. After supper, I finished the daily and started another.
“What was the daily?” I asked my mother.
Her smile was reminiscent. “Crossword puzzle,” she explained. “She used to do the one in the local paper every day.”
I flipped through a couple more.
Sunday, May 2, 1990
Partly Sunny
High 54, Low 44
Went to church. After dinner, I washed two loads of clothes, read the paper and made out monthly checks. Put some mothballs in the garden. Walked ten blocks after supper. Finished daily.
“Wow, Nana’s life really didn’t change much from year to year, did it?”
I waited for her to respond, but instead, I looked up and found my mother staring at the binder, her eyes vacant and cold.
“Mom?”
She shook her head a little and seemed to come out of it. “Dinner?”
“Yeah,” I answered, a bit taken aback. “You okay?”
“Just hungry. Do you want to order a pizza?” she asked, blazing past me, out the door.
“Pizza?”
“Yeah, there’s that new place that everyone is talking about.”
I tried to not roll my eyes.
