Hell No, We Won’t Go
saying goodbye to my childhood home
When the moving truck comes, my mother grabs her car keys. Last night she parked in front of the house to save a spot for the movers.
“That kid across the street is always parking in front of our house,” she says while shaking her head, as if there was no greater sin. “Park in front of your own house!”
My father doesn’t acknowledge her remark. He’s too busy contemplating the best time to tip the movers. “Do you think I should tip them before they start?” my father asks. “I heard that was the way to do it.”
“I don’t know, maybe,” I say. “Or maybe half up front?”
“After is fine,” my mother says, waving her hand dismissively as she heads outside.
She moves her car and the giant truck pulls in next to the curb. My father goes outside to greet the men while I retreat to the bathroom. Before long, I hear voices downstairs, my father explaining that half of their belongings are going into storage and half to the apartment where they will be living until they find another house.
I dilly-dally in the bathroom. I consider staying there all day, locking the door, living there. I imagine the men knocking on the door. “You can take everything else, just leave me here,” I will shout. “Leave me alone!”
When I was a kid, I used to curl up in the corner next to the warm radiator after I took a bath. I’d fall asleep under my damp towel. I wonder how many times my parents found me there, how many times they lifted me up and carried me to my bed, arms and legs dangling.
When I finally come out, the men are moving about freely. There are five of them wearing blue hooded sweatshirts with white logos. They pick up heavy boxes and pieces of furniture. “Do you have any more glass or mirrors?” I hear one of them ask. They have a system, these men.
I want to stop them, to ask, “Who the hell do you think you are walking around here like this?” I want to chain myself to something, stand in the doorway of a room so that they cannot remove the furniture. I want to link arms with my parents and chant “Hell no, we won’t go!”
Instead, I force myself to smile at one of the men as I pass him on the stairs. Shooting the messenger never changes anything.
“Hello,” I say as casually as I can manage.
My father is in the living room. “They seem nice,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say, half shrugging.
I find my mother standing idly in the den, looking like she needs something for her hands to do. Her eyes are pooled with tears.
“I’m getting weepy,” she says.
I rub her shoulder halfheartedly but we both know that this day is necessary. My parents are in their mid-sixties and the house is too big for them, too much to take care of. For the past five years my father has struggled with the necessary tasks—cleaning the gutters, pointing up the brick walkway, coating the front door with shellac, waterproofing the basement walls.
When I called my mother over the weekend to see how the last of their packing was coming along, she sounded detached, which surprised me. In the weeks prior she’d had an unpredictable current of emotion running through her.
“That’s sad,” I said, when she told me that she’d started packing up the kitchen. Something about the image of my mom standing in a kitchen full of bare cabinets caused me to get teary eyed.
“It’s time,” she responded matter-of-factly.
Neither of us acknowledged the fact that we were both correct in our simple, two word assertions.
The movers continue their work. By now, all but one has cast his sweatshirts into the truck, revealing blue t-shirts with the same company logo. They seem to be everywhere, these men. Swirls of royal blue whiz by in every room, around every corner.
In my parents’ room I strip their bed, put the blankets into a black trash bag and begin taking the bed frame apart. My mother is in the room, collecting several items that she wants to transport in her car for safekeeping.
“You wouldn’t believe how cheap we got that,” she says, motioning to the headboard. I look up at its deep brown color, its intricate design. There is a patch of walnut burl at the center. I imagine my parents thirty plus years earlier, buying this bedframe, both twenty pounds lighter with unblemished, youthful skin, both full of big ideas about how their lives were going to unfold—the things they would do, the places they would go, the kind of parents they would be. There is a faded receipt taped to the back of the headboard.
“You taped the receipt back here?”
“I guess I did,” my mother answers.
Thirty-five dollars, it reads.
As soon as I have the frame apart, the movers are there to collect the pieces and carry them away. When they get the headboard to the steps, they discover that it won’t fit, so they have to take it apart.
“We didn’t take that apart to get it in here. That’s never been taken apart,” my mother says in half whispered tones, as if she has just uncovered some sort of irrefutable evidence of the movers’ incompetence.
“Really?” I ask, wondering if she might have forgotten this detail from so long ago.
“No. Never. We got that up here in one piece.” She rolls her eyes.
The men are efficient. The contents of the house dwindle over the course of an hour and a half, though it feels much faster, as if one minute the house is full of belongings, and the next minute they have disappeared. Either way, it feels strange to have it happen so quickly. Now you see it, now you don’t.
Before I know it, the men are pulling away with the giant truck. My father goes with them to supervise at the apartment, but my mother and I stay behind to collect the odds and ends and to clean up a bit. Our voices echo when we talk to one another.
I wonder what it will be like in a few days when this house no longer belongs to my parents. I imagine driving by in the years to come, seeing the changes that will take place on the outside—a new paint color, or perhaps the pine tree out front will be gone. I think of the way that these things will be out of my control, the way that no one will consult me about these decisions. I don’t know if I will be able to drive by. I also don’t know whether I will be able to stay away.
“I’ll start upstairs,” I say to my mom. Most of the rooms are empty but there are still a few small items that the men have left behind.
In my parents room there is a gold crucifix on the wall. Behind it my mother tucked several pieces of hay. I know immediately that they are from the manger at church where every year, she went up to the display at Christmas mass and took a piece. I was never certain about whether she did this for luck or whether the hay was some sort of blessed and holy thing, but for years, I hedged my bets, mimicking her every move at the Nativity scene—kneeling, looking at the face of baby Jesus with delight and awe, picking up one strand of golden straw and putting it away in my pocket.
I take the crucifix down and notice that the paint underneath is brighter than the surrounding area. I wipe the dust off of the baseboard where it collected behind the bed and the file cabinet.
When I run the vacuum over the rug, certain areas still seem new and others are compressed, worn. The area between where the bed and bureau used to be is the worst section—slightly browned and crushed. I envision my mother standing there, moving about, getting ready for work, getting dressed for a party. I imagine her waking in the night, her feet moving over that very spot on her way to tend to a crying baby.
I take comfort in the fact that even in a house emptied of their belongings, some sign of them will remain. I have a sudden urge to put my face on the rug, to press it into the path that she wore over the years.
She is getting old. They both are. When they are gone, I will be the thing they have left behind, like this rug. The thing they have left their mark upon.
I finish running the vacuum and glance at the compacted area one last time, glad that it is there—this evidence, this trace of their existence—of the years spent, the lives lived. I move to the next room and plug in the vacuum.
Danielle Ariano is a writer and cabinetmaker. Read more of her writing on her website.
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