It was a Sunday, and they were cleaning up the attic while Emma was down in the living room looking after Michael.

Jonathan dropped a box and looked at his wife. “Are you really sure you want to throw out those old comic books?”

“I’m not throwing them out,” Carrie said. “I’m selling them, either at the flea market or to Rhonda down in the shop.”

“Yeah, but I mean, get rid of them. Are you sure you want to get rid of them?”

“Are you interested in the X-Men all of a sudden?” Carrie asked.

“It’s not about that.” He cocked his head, sat down on the box, and looked at her. “You’ve always been very vocal about how you don’t have time for yourself. That a lot of what you did before…”

“I know,” Carrie said, and she sat down as well. She had an issue of the X-Men in her hands, a couple of issues, in fact. She had been sorting them, but she had discovered that the feeling was genuine enough; she had to get them out. “Well, these are artifacts,” she said, “relics of two things: my nerdy life in high school, which is long over—that was 20 years ago—and even further back because they are, at least some of them, heirlooms from my brother.”

“Yeah, well, that’s another reason to keep them,” Jonathan said.

“I’d rather keep the photographs and his jacket and such things,” Carrie said. “They have more sentimental value. This,” she looked at them, “is just… I don’t know… painful, I guess.” She looked up at him, very intensely.

“Painful?” Jonathan said. “What do you mean? Is it because Tim is dead?” It was a very direct question, but Carrie didn’t mind. There was a certain kind of peace around her brother, who hadn’t been here for 13 years now, 14 years. “Well,” she said, “no, it’s very selfish. It’s me, because I don’t have a place to read them or time to read them.”

“Well, you have this place,” Jonathan said. “Look, the chair and the desk, and you sit here sometimes and draw, and then I suppose you also read.”

“Yes,” she said. “And I can remind myself for, like, 20 minutes before Michael starts acting up, that when I was young and nerdy, as ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic might have it, then I wanted to be a comic book artist, you know, back in another day when the world wasn’t so goddamn complicated.” She made a grimace.

“Yeah,” Jonathan said. “Back when we were … You wouldn’t believe the things that my brother and I talked about doing while on the road with my parents.” He leaned back. “Those were the days. , Dave wanted to be a firefighter.”

“Yeah, and now he’s fighting hunger in Burkina Faso and getting shot at by local Bedouins,” Carrie said sarcastically. “I’m not sure that that is much less dangerous.”

“Well, there’s that,” Jonathan said. “But seriously, honey, I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret. You know, those comics are, like, what, two boxes? So it’s not about space, you know. We have plenty of space. I’m throwing out these old… what are they, clothes from when…”

“No, they’re your clothes, actually,” Carrie said.

“Yeah, but I’m throwing them out. Nobody wants to buy those old shirts anyway,” Jonathan said.

“All right,” she said.

“But in case you’re worried about that, it’s not about space,” Jonathan said. “It’s a nice, cozy little place over there.” He nodded at the desk.

“ I guess it’s time,” Carrie said, “and, well, no, it’s not time even. Even 20 minutes a week is a sort of chance to connect with the past. I guess that’s precious enough.”

“Well, what is it then?” Jonathan said.

“I said it wasn’t about space,” Carrie said. “But … It’s about headspace.”

“Okay. You’ll have to clarify that,” he said.

“Well,” Carrie said—

“Is it because you’re stressed?” he said. “You know, with all the things with Michael.”

“Yeah, well, partly,” Carrie said. “And like I said, the no-time-to-read, that also factors in, but it’s more than that. It’s like, if you’re a special needs mom, or dad,” she nodded at him, “well, at least the way I see it is that you’ve got to protect what’s left of your own self. You know, the self where you just express yourself. God, I’m not good at explaining this, but you know, just being you. Because there’s so much else in the day, like 95% that is about someone else.”

“That’s true,” Jonathan said.

“So how do you protect yourself?” Carrie said. “What’s left of you, so you can still have something and, I guess, also so you have some energy to ride it out.”

“That’s a good question,” Jonathan said. “You know what I do, I’m hanging out with Ernesto and the guys, and then there’s baseball, I guess.”

“Yeah,” she said. “And I sit here 20 minutes a week and make some doodles and leaf through an old issue of X-Men. But there’s one part of that I want to keep,” she said. “You know, I want to keep doodling, even though I’m desperate. I don’t know what to do about that because I just keep doodling—I don’t have the energy to make it into anything more.” She took out a drawing pad and put it down again as if it was a heavy brick. “But reading,” she said, “you know, I can’t even read a goddamn magazine these days. And, you know, so it’s about the headspace.”

“So,” Jonathan said, “you could go to your mom’s place. I could take the children. You could take a stack of comic books, whatever you want, with you, and…”

“It’s not about that, Jonathan. It’s not just about headspace.”

“Well, what is it then?” he said. “You keep changing the explanation.” He was slightly annoyed.

“We’re not going to fight now, are we?” Carrie said.

“No, we’re not going to fight. I just want to make sure that you don’t do anything you’ll regret,” he said. Again.

Carrie paused a little and looked at her husband and remembered how much she loved him. Then she said in her best voice, “That’s very sweet. But this decision has actually been coming some time, just like some of the old clothes I threw out, and that you’re going to throw out. These old books have to go too. I have the mementos I want from my brother. These are just reminders of a past that no longer exists and no longer can exist, where, you know, I just could drop down on my bed and read all afternoon, whether it was girl’s magazines or, you know, when I was in high school with Lin.”

Carrie paused for a moment, and there was a sudden silence. she quickly continued. “, I could just drop down on my bed all afternoon and read X-Men, Spider-Man, or roleplaying books, anything, really.”

“Yeah, and you can’t do that anymore,” he said.

“No, and it’s not like going somewhere for a weekend is going to help,” Carrie said, “because I have it inside me … this sense that my space has become incredibly limited, and I have to fill it up with something else and not just old memories.”

Carrie took a little eraser up from her desk.

“Something … “ she searched for the words, that’s still very true to myself. But I don’t know how to explain this. Oh, god.” She fiddled nervously with the eraser kept circling it round and around between her fingers. “The person I am today,” she finally said.

“So what are you going to fill it with?” Jonathan said. “I mean, just you alone.”

“Yeah, well, that’s a whole other question,” she said. “But let’s not get into that.”

“No, let’s not get into that,” Jonathan said. “But what are you going to do, alone, once you get rid of … the comics?”

“I don’t know,” Carrie said. “I just know I have to get rid of some of the things of the past that remind me of something I can no longer do. You know, they are not good memories.” 

He nodded, but he was also tapping his foot

“I’m going to keep a couple,” she added. “You know, this one… this one, actually, Tim gave to me as a special gift for my birthday, back when I had moved to Cleveland.”

“Well, can I see that?” Jonathan said, reaching out.

“Yeah, it’s a nice comic book.”

“God Loves, Man Kills,” Jonathan said. “What kind of a title is that?”

“Oh, it’s actually a very apt title for, I don’t know, the conditions, I guess,” Carrie said, “of the world.”

“Okay, that looks dramatic,” Jonathan said.

“It’s a very good story,” she said. “It’s about bigotry, hatred, and superheroes doing something about it.”

“Oh,” he said. “Can superheroes do something about that as well?”

“Well, they can try,” she said, “they can stick together.”

“Yeah,” Jonathan said. “Okay. So, a little keeper,” he said and handed it back to her.

“Yes,” she said, “a little keeper. But the rest will have to go. And a lot of other things, not just these. I thought when we moved here, I had to keep it, and it didn’t matter because it was so little … space, but it matters inside my head, because it’s, like I said, it’s a memory of something I now only want to remember—I won’t try to hold onto it anymore, if you can see the difference.”

“Oh. I’m trying to see the difference,” Jonathan said.

“That’s good,” Carrie said. “That’s very good. Then we can move on.”

“We can,” he said, sounding relieved.

“Very well.” She threw the eraser at him teasingly. “What have you got in that other box below your lovely butt?” 

*

CARRIE and JON, October 2017

*

Photo by Daniel Shapiro on Unsplash