I find myself in my parents' room, looking for anything of what they were
like when they were my age. Under the bed, there was nothing. Couldn't find
anything in their night stands either. I make my way to my mother's dresser. Her
jewelry lay sprawled across the top, some hung over picture frames. In those
frames captured moments of their happiness. One was from their wedding on the
coast of Ireland. Mom looked beautiful, her dress blowing in the wind, the
sunlight shining bright off of her chin lengthed, auburn hair. Dad looked
handsome, excited that who he was standing next to him would be there for the
rest of his life. Another frame held our first family photo in the hospital room
where I was born. Mom was propped up in bed, holding a little me inside her
arms. Both were looking down at me, cheerfully and in awe as if they had seen
the greatest thing in the world.
I look in the mirror that hung on the wall and study myself carefully. I
had my father's dark brown hair, his clever smirk. I had my mother's pale skin,
her ocean blue eyes. The perfect blend of their genes.
"Keelan! Dinner!" I heard Mom call from downstairs.
"Coming!" I reply. Even dinner couldn't make me budge. Five minutes went by
with me trying to think of places where memorabilia from the past could be. The
closet held their everyday clothes, party attire Mom's wedding dress, Dad's tux,
and boxes duct taped shut. Writing was scrawled across the sides. I sit on my
knees as I try to decipher the hand writing. Dad clearly was the one to write on
the boxes. "Keelan's Baby Stuff", no. "Ireland", no. Their had to be something
that clearly said "High School" or "Clare" or "Eli" but no.
"Are you kidding?" I say to myself. I hear a quiet outburst of laughter
emerge from my father's lips. "Dad?" I stand up and find him leaning against
the doorframe.
"What are you doing up here, kiddo?" he asks me
"In-home, self-taught education." I say turning back into the closet.
"Keelan Marie Goldsworthy, you definitely are my kid. Now come here," he
motions me into his arms and kisses the top of my head. "If you wanted to find
something good, you this is where you should've gone." he releases me and walks
towards his dresser. He pulls open the top drawer, rummaging trying to find
something.
"Yeah, if I wanted to find something good, I would so go through your
underwear drawer." I tell him.
He turns around with a box and sits down on the bed. He lifts the lid.
"Please, your mother doesn't even go through that drawer. I have so many pictures
of her when she was your age." I sit beside him as he begins to sift
through its content.
"I don't go through what?" My mom interrupts.
"Clare, sweetie. Hi." Dad fumbles and sends a picture flying to Mom's feet.
She picks it up. "I remember this. Adam took this for us." She flips the
picture around to reveal the two of them at what appears to be a high school
dance. Mom dressed in a cute black and white polka dot dress and Dad in a black
button up top with a red coat, both smiling, Uncle Adam managed to capture a perfect Kodak moment. "This was the first time I actually saw your father wear some
color other than black" she said handing the photo to me as she crept on the bed
behind us. She skimmed through the box as if she knew what she was doing.
"To be honest, hon, I have gone through that drawer before. A long time
ago. How else would I have found this?" she holds up a picture of my father
receiving his high school diploma, shaking hands with the principal. "Now this
was the second time I've seen him wear anything but black," she says, talking
about his blue graduation gown. "Oh, and this. You never did change that Clara
Edwin character." she holds up an old English assignment of his.
"Floozy, ingénue. It's all the same." he says. She smacks his shoulder. At
that moment, my dad playfully lunges at my mother, tickling her sides, kissing
her cheeks and then gently kisses her lips. "Not in front of our daughter" Mom
warns through a small giggle.
I turn my attention to the box, looking through what's inside. I pick up a
piece of jewelry, a ring, and fiddle with it on my finger. "I'm 16, nothing I
haven't seen before."
She snaps back up after hearing my response and sees the band glimmer in the
light, taking it out of my hand. "Do I have to make you wear this?" she
threatens
"A ring?" I ask
"I can always pull the hearse around front for when she has boys over."
Dad contributes
"It was my abstinence ring. I had no idea your father kept it after all
these years."
Dad quickly steals something from the box and walks around me. "I think
she much rather this than an abstinence ring." he places a chain around my neck,
clips it in the back and rotates it so I can see the metal guitar pick that
hangs off of it. My gaze adverts from the pick, to my father, to the photo I
have in my hand. It's the same necklace as the one he's wearing in the picture.
"Eli, honey, you kept your suspenders?" Mom asks, pulling a skinny black
pair from the box. The clips jingle as she waves them in the air.
I act fast. "I can make use of these." I take them from her and begin to
attach them to my gray skinny jeans. She laughs. "You definitely are your
father's child."
"She may have my fashion sense, but she has your personality." Dad
playfully argues back. Mom jokingly rolls her eyes. "At least both our smarts
wore off on her"
"Come on. Enough making fun of my high school years. Let's go eat." he
disappears down the hall.
Mom and I stand up from the bed and she captures me in a half hug. "If you
really wanted to find something interesting, you should've check behind his
dresser." She kisses my forehead and makes a quick escape after my father. My
eyes grow wide in curiosity but I resist checking and follow after them. My
family is definitely something.