Dirty Little Secrets

Aunt Jean was right—a shovel was the only tool for this job. Thanks to Mom’s “collecting,” we happened to have several out by the shed in the back. I dragged the green trash can into the house and set it up with a bag in a small, clear spot on the living room floor.

Even though I knew Mom was gone, it was hard to really believe she wasn’t going to burst through the front door and start screaming at me for touching her stuff. She wasn’t going to tell me that I never helped her and that she worked too hard to have time for stupid things like cleaning the house. I jammed the stuff as far down into the plastic bags as I could, poking and punching at the clothes, papers, and scraps of fabric she valued more than she valued any of us.

Before I realized it, I had four bags full of junk that needed to go outside. Four was about the upper limit for the number of bags I could stack around the recliner before they took up all available space. When I checked out the peephole in the front door, there was an old couple slowly shuffling down the street. I tried to think about how many trips I’d taken to the backyard today. It had to be at least eight or nine. In an hour or two, people were going to start coming home from work, and the street was going to get a lot busier.

I stepped away from the door and tried to figure out another way to get this done. The hallway was still too cluttered to drag bags or boxes through, but if I continued to cart things out the front door and around the side of the house, people might get suspicious. It was getting colder in the living room, so I grabbed my jacket off the door and put it back on while I thought. Leaving the windows open in the back of the house was going to be good for keeping Mom . . . cold, but I was going to freeze in here tonight.

The windows. That was it. I grabbed one of the bags and dragged it through the living room and into the dining room. The window in that room was blocked by a small pile of boxes and bags that reached just past the windowsill. I didn’t bother clearing any of it away, but just stood on top of the pile and undid the latch. Like the rest of the house, the windows were old, and this one probably hadn’t been opened in years. Part of it was held shut with paint, but I banged on the top of the frame until it began to inch up little by little.

When I finally had the window opened wide enough, I stuck my head out to see what was down below. There were a few old plastic milk crates stacked against the house, but other than that it was clear. I balanced the full garbage bag on the ledge and, with a shove, sent it flying out the window where it bounced off a crate and settled onto the ground. This was the perfect solution. Not only would it save me from having to haul all this stuff out the front door for the world to see, but I could keep everything right here on the side of the house until they took Mom away.

Now it was like my body was on autopilot. All my energy was concentrated into grabbing whatever was on top of the closest stack and shoving it as far down into the trash bag as it would go. Grab a handful, shove it in the bag. Grab another handful, shove it in the bag. Bag after bag, pile after pile. I felt like I was finally making progress.

Halfway down one pile, I found what at first looked to be a large box covered with a hot pink towel. When I hit it with the back of my hand, it sounded like metal clanging together, and I realized it wasn’t a box. I could see ridges under the towel that made it lie in waves along the top. Even before I pulled the towel off, the faint smell of cedar chips told me what it was and made me a little sad all over again.

I hadn’t seen the hamster cage since ninth grade.

“Make sure you feed him this week,” I said to Mom as I set Petey’s cage down in a cleared spot on the kitchen counter. “He likes sunflower seeds and these green pellets. Also, little bits of apple and peanuts at night.” Petey was curled up in a ball on his mound of cedar shavings. Every morning, he’d spend hours getting the mound just right so he could turn around three times and snuggle into it with just one ear showing.

“He eats better than I do,” Mom said, peering over the top of the cage. She poked a finger in through the bars and wiggled it around. “Here, Petey Petey.”

“He doesn’t like it when you do that,” I said to her. I was already annoyed. She never made anything easy.

“How do you know what he likes?” she asked. She waggled her finger at him one more time. “Since when did you start speaking hamster?”

“It scares him,” I said. “Look, he’s curling up tighter and digging in the shavings. That means he’s scared.”

“Maybe you don’t handle him enough,” she said. “Otherwise he wouldn’t be such a scaredy-hamster.” She pulled her finger out of the cage and stood up straight to look at me.