Eli’s father.
What was left of him. This must have been Hank’s box. All the artifacts that had been left behind had made their way here, buried among the plastic pumpkins and Santa hats.
I dug in, hoping to learn a little bit more about this man. I’d only heard stories. Tales from Tamara of the Man Before. Maybe there was something else to glean from him in here.
What was Hank like? I’d ask.
Believe me, she’d always say, the less you know about him, the better. She never wanted to talk about him. If he ever came up, she’d steer the conversation as far away as possible. Almost like she didn’t want him to exist. Certainly not in Elijah’s life.
Tamara and I never dug into each other’s past. I didn’t ask her about her childhood and she didn’t ask me about mine. There was an unspoken agreement between us about the lives we had led before we found each other. Who we were before we met, our ups and downs, were behind us. All we had were our scars—some more visible than others—and that was enough to tell the story. Our past didn’t need to define our day-to-day, as long as we were honest about who we are now.
So why had she kept all of her ex-husband’s crap? How could she not have thrown his things away? I wasn’t about to get jealous over some box, but it was strange to me, meeting this man this way, learning about him through his discarded belongings. A lost and found for one.
I kept Hank’s box. What if he came back for it one day? I’d have to explain that I’d been the one who tossed him out, which wasn’t something I felt ready to do. The others ended up by the curb on trash collection day, while his box stayed in the corner, under the wasp’s nest.
Next step was to set up my studio.
Before school started, I had cleared the floor and put up some shelving units. Tamara was pleasantly pleased with herself for assigning me a house project, which, in all honesty, I had begun to suspect was some sort of pretense for me to clean out their goddamn garage.
No matter. The space was mine now.
After the whole papier-mâché incident, I told Tamara I was going out to the studio for a bit before dinner. Just to wash the day away. Class left me a little rattled.
I can’t put my finger on it, but I can’t stop thinking about—
Mr. Yucky
—that papier-mâché puppet. Who could’ve made it? I decide to get my mind off things and finally christen my new workspace with a charcoal sketch. Just a little drawing to limber up the ol’ imagination. See if I still have it in me. Tamara would complain about how everything I touched had blackened fingerprints all over it if I ever sketched, but that’s the price of inspiration. Secretly, I think she liked it. It’s her way of keeping tabs on me. She’ll know I’ve been working.
So what am I going to draw? I stare at the white space on the sketchpad, losing myself in the vast expanse. When working with charcoal, you bring darkness to the page. The shadows come first. Before the image clarifies, before you even see what you’re drawing, it’s all black.
I prefer charcoal because of its impermanence. It’s a delicate substance but there’s a brittle quality to it as well. It allows for quick sketching to capture an image before it disappears from the mind’s eye. But charcoal fades faster than most other materials. Without a fixative, the charcoal particles won’t adhere to the paper. Not permanently. They will fall off, like dust. The image itself drifts away from the page over time, until it’s gone altogether.
It’s cold out here. Tamara is right—I should winterize this place. The temperature’s only going to drop the deeper into the year we go. Winter is on its way and without a heating system, I’ll freeze. Just over my shoulder, I spot a cardboard box in the corner and remember what it is. I reach in and pull out what I know is already there.
The sweater fits perfectly.
Beside a few loose threads, it’s still a good sweater. Snug. It’s strange to be wearing it, but let’s just consider it a quick remedy for the cold. I’ll take it off before I head back to the house.
I saved all of Tamara’s CDs, stuffed in a box along with a dinged-up Discman. I sift through her old albums until I find the perfect soundtrack for tonight’s endeavor.
The Police. Synchronicity. I haven’t listened to this in ages.
I slip on Tamara’s headphones, the foam disintegrated but still usable, and press play. Let The Police take me away. Track one kicks off and I pick up a stick of charcoal.
Sketching has always been a somnambulistic act. I don’t want to think. Don’t want to be conscious of what I’m drawing while I’m working on it. I tend to shut off and let the work take me away, as if in a trance. I’ll eventually wake up to an image. Music helps.
I wait for the shadows. Wait for an image to rise from my mind. One stroke. Then two. I’m conducting a sort of séance here.
Skrch.
Skrch.
Skrch.
The charcoal scrapes over the sketchpad.
Skrch.
Skrch.
Skrch.
Shadows seep into my peripheral vision, the charcoal dust blotting out everything around me, until I head off somewhere. Somewhere else. Far away from here.
Skrch.
Skrch.
Skrch.
The image materializes over time, like conjuring a memory. What am I drawing? Even I don’t know. Not yet. Not until I snap out of it.
At some point I realize I’m more than halfway through the album. Where did all that time go? I step back and take in the image.
Mom.
Her hair fans all around her head, as if she’s drifting underwater.
There’s
