Chapter Two: Brown Boxes
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By the end of the week, garbage day in Glenoak, a large and conspicuous pile of empty brown boxes had accumulated on the curb in front of the Shaw house. They were marked, as moving boxes tend to be, with brief descriptions of their former contents and the names of the people to whom those contents belonged. From this collection of boxes, then, an archaeologist could, were he or she so inclined, construct a list that named the occupants of the Shaw house, and which could also assign to them a hierarchy of relative importance, based on the frequency of names, the sizes of the boxes, and most importantly what the boxes were said to contain. That no archaeologist was practicing in Glenoak that week means only that such a study was never done, not that it couldn't have been.

Edward -- Fishing things.

Virginia -- Dolls and dollhouse.

Franklin -- Stamp collection, rock collection.

Rebecca -- Kitchen utensils, pots and pans.

Edward -- Computer things.

Rebecca -- Cleaning things.

Barry -- Toys.

Edward -- Gunsmithing and cartridge loading tools.

Samantha and Ellen -- Clothes and shoes.

Rebecca -- Vacuum cleaner.

And so on and so on. There were many boxes.

Across the street, the Camdens watched their new neighbors moving in with tremendous interest. They liked to watch things, these Camdens did, being possessed, each of them, of a most astonishing curiosity. Some might argue, in fact, that for the Camdens the eventual discovery of whatever it was they were watching was actually a disappointment; that in fact it was the watching itself that thrilled them. However this may be, their constant watching did have the benefit of keeping the neighborhood safe, since in the small town of Glenoak news traveled fast and people knew that when you went through the Camden neighborhood you were very likely to be under their scrutiny.

If the Shaws had heard of this, however, they gave no notice.

They were, of course, busy. Despite his well paying job, or more likely because of it, Edward Shaw spent long hours at his office, longer still just now because he was getting moved in there as well. He was, therefore, gone early and home late, and when he came home it was only with great effort that he found time to play a bit with his younger children and exchange a few words with his older ones. Of the younger there was Virginia, aged eleven, a shy but pretty girl whose long, smooth hair was brushed a hundred times by her mother and then tied back with a silk ribbon every night before bed, Barry, aged six, a boundless whirl of energy with a fondness for battling imaginary enemies with toy guns and swords, and the twin girls Samantha and Ellen, each aged sixteen. These two were fraternal twins (if your humble narrator may be allowed to use such a term with respect to girls), and though they shared with each other in all things such as clothes and mundane possessions, they were not much alike at all. Samantha had a natural, fragile beauty, her face smooth and white like a china doll and her form slender and just beginning to show the curves of womanhood. Ellen was a bit shorter but not enough to warrant a separate wardrobe, possessed of dark eyes and an intensity that she had inherited from her father, as well as the occasional bout with pimples that is normal for teens but which always seemed to pass her twin sister by. Ellen of them all most loved to work with her hands, and her hands were well suited to work, being strong, her fingers shorter than those of her sister, a fact that in her most private moments she found somewhat distressing.

Franklin was fifteen, and he was the youngest of the eldest. This was not a description provided by age, of course, but rather by gender. Since the departure of his elder two brothers (the second born, named Joshua, and the third, named Peter) one into the military and the other into marriage, he had been told by his parents that it was his place to watch over his sisters and brothers, to set an example for them of what a good young man should be. He tried as best he could with this, his eyes always looking to his father for that nearly invisible nod of approval that to Edward Shaw was the only appropriate sign of positive emotion regularly permitted to a man.

That brings us to seven. Of the eighth, the eldest, there is little to be said of her here save that she no longer lived with her family, and that she had married.

Not all of this, of course, was immediately known by the Camdens or their quasi-adopted son. They too were a large family, with the seven natural children and the one they had taken on. We have seen the twins already, old enough to talk but not showing a strong desire to do so, and we have all heard of Ruthie, who was moving quickly into her teens now and with it what was to the Camdens the celebrated excitement of menarche, and who among the Camdens the curiosity gene had most manifested itself; a tall order indeed. Simon, in high school now, keeping to himself and the company of his close friend Morris, and then Lucy, who Annie had described to Rebecca during their visit over tea. Lucy attended the local college, which was, for reasons unknown to the population of Glenoak and the world at large, called Crawford. Of the eldest two Camden children, the son was married and in medical school at a prestigious university in New York, with a full scholarship whose origins are uncertain, and the daughter was a flight attendant on the busy Buffalo to Big-City-Near-Glenoak corridor. How she, as very much a junior flight attendant, had landed such a prestigious route remains a mystery. We can perhaps just say that fate had always smiled down on the Camden children.

Robbie, of course, was not a Camden by blood but very much one by disposition. He had once proposed marriage to their eldest daughter and had also once attempted to seduce her in a disreputable motel on the outskirts of Glenoak, and later he and daughter Lucy had engaged in a short-lived affair that primarily involved rock-paper-scissors games as well as wet and passionate kissing in every convenient location around the house and points nearby. Ruthie had also made her romantic interest in him clear, several times, apparently being less than aware of the significant difference in their ages. Despite his amorous involvement with at least two of the Camden daughters, Robbie was a good student and for a time had been the most talented homeless student in Glenoak, at which point Eric Camden had brought him home, and after which point he had never left.

This is what the Shaws, had they been like the Camdens with that undying curiosity, would have quickly learned. They did not right away, of course, since they were of a different disposition, and learning who other people really were was not a high priority for them.

For us who follow this story from afar, the admittedly brief descriptions above serve to complete our introduction to the main characters of the drama that was to come. Of the events of those days, ending as Friday came and with it the large pile of boxes disappearing with the garbage truck, we can say quickly that Eric Camden worked on his sermon and various affairs at his church, that Annie Camden tended the twins and her home, never quite reaching her goal of working on the unfinished garage apartment, and that her other children were kept busy with their schooling. Across the street, Edward Shaw worked long hours at his new office while Rebecca Shaw unpacked and organized their new home with the help of her children, who could sometimes be seen by the curious Camdens, playing in their yard, but who were not seen otherwise, even at the impressive facilities of the Glenoak public school system.