Moving On

Lulu sat hard on the suitcase; she plunked her butt down over and over again, hoping it would help her squish the opening together, so she could zip around the corners. It squished things alright, but they kept edging themselves out through the sliver of space between the zipper teeth. She kept tucking and zipping, tucking and zipping, trying to get the damn suitcase to close. Like her life, the suitcase was full of stuff she didn’t want to give attention to or sort out or make fit, things she couldn’t do without. So here she was, determined to make it work, as if she wasn’t allowed to pull out any of the precious belongings that added up to her life experience. She was running out of time as the sun was peeking on the horizon, the stress of immediacy made her feel a bit desperate and shaky.

Much of the contents was clothes. But then there was Dan’s watch, Momma’s gold jewelry, the baby blanket. How was she supposed to part with those things? Things monumental to all the phases of her growth through childhood, marriage, and motherhood. She had been selective, and having lots of things wasn’t really her deal, so the ones she packed couldn’t be discarded—that would be like discarding her.

                 Shit. I don’t want to start over with everything. She sat atop the soft-shell case, put her head in her hands and wept.  Her shoulders shook as she wailed aloud with her groaning. After she had reached the peak of her emotional state, she let herself sit and sob for a minute, then she breathed in deep gulps of air and came back down to a bit of exhausted calm.

“How did it come to this?” Her doodle dog poked her cold, wet nose up under Lulu’s hands, trying to provide comfort. Lulu opened her eyes, wiped them, and cupped her dog’s face in her tear-wet hands. “How, Bess? How did we get here?” Bess licked Lulu’s chin then rested her head on her lap and raised her eyes upward to gaze into Lulu’s. The empathy was almost too much to bear. Fine.

Lulu kissed the top of Bess’s head, slid down from her perch on the suitcase, and flung it wide open to review her collection of life relics. They said only one suitcase. They said she’d have to be selective. They said she couldn’t take much with her; it would reveal too much. They said she had to leave before sun-up.

“The watch, the jewelry, the blanket.” She said out loud as if a mantra for meditation of some kind. Meditation of madness, that’s what.  What else can I not live without?

“The watch, the jewelry, the blanket. The picture. The cards.”  She couldn’t live without the framed picture of her and Dan at the beach in the Bahamas, the one with the orange flare of sunshine spreading thin across the evening horizon, the electric water rippling to high tide behind them in its varying shades of blue. The photographer had made them embrace in their wedding clothes, an intimate moment only they shared. She couldn’t live without the box of cards that congratulated the two of them for the conception of their little girl that would never live a day in this world—the joy immeasurable—until it wasn’t, turning into unbearable heartache they shared, the little body lifeless as she birthed her out of her canal. The baby blanket had been her mother’s; it was handed down to her as a baby, waiting to swaddle her own offspring. It was wrapped around the small card box. She ran her fingers across the soft, worn-in fibers of the crocheted treasure.

Tears flowed down her face again.

She couldn’t leave behind the sketchbooks—they were pieces of her in graphite on paper—to leave all of them behind would be to lose her identity inside, not just on the outside. She had chosen only three to keep. She couldn’t leave behind the scarf Dan gave her for their first Christmas together; he had searched and scavenged to find just the right one; the Pashmina fabric supple and smooth and warm, with subtle pinks and chartreuse blended in patterns that made her feel comforted and alive, loved. She picked up a pair of black boots that she wore every time they went dancing—they were her favorite pair, and although she could just buy another pair, these boots flooded her mind with memories of movement and laughter and joy—she breathed on those kinds of memories now.

Lulu pulled out a few pairs of jeans and threw them to floor. She pulled out a sweatshirt and some shorts and shirts that she loved. They, too, held memories she didn’t want to lose, but those memories would have to live inside her now.

“You’re so beautiful,” Dan would say every time she entered a room.  “How did I get so lucky?” How indeed?

The shots had rung loud and clear through the expanse of the grocery store. The escaped convict was fighting for his life, taking the lives of others. Lulu had hidden behind a full rack of potato chips as the killer stood feet in front of her, his back toward the rack. She watched as Dan rounded the corner, running their direction. “Lulu!” He had yelled her name over and over, looking frantic. She had stepped out from behind the rack to wave Dan to silence, to show him she was safe, but at that moment, the felon shot Dan and turned in her direction. His eyes had pierced hers as if a bullet went through-and-through.  

“Dan! Noooo!” She had screamed as she dropped to the floor and watched the blood pool around his body halfway down the cereal aisle. The felon grabbed her by the arms to pull her up and use her as a shield. She went limp, and he had to drag her, finally giving up on hauling her body weight while trying to escape. And escape he did, with her purse and identification, even her phone.  Turned out he was the son of a major crime boss, the kind you run and hide from instead of confront. He not only took her personal items, he took her future, her dignity, her hopes and dreams.

Her burner phone rings.

“Hello.”

“Ms. Lulu.” A voice of grit and gravel addressed her, deep and slow.

“How’d you find me?” Her voice wavered.

“I can find you anywhere.”

Lulu threw the phone against the wall. It fell to the wall, and Bess sniffed at it.

The suitcase almost zipped itself before she yanked it off the bed and dropped it into the trunk. With Bess in the backseat, Lulu traveled to a new world. The belongings in her suitcase are now scattered throughout her small home, reminding her of who she used to be when she was alive.