Yellow Thing

When I was six years old, Mom drove us to the store and told me to pick out a toy.

She knelt down in front of me and looked me straight in the eye. “You only get one,” she warned, “so choose carefully.” 

I already had a small collection of toys at home—a fluffy moose from a giftshop in a faraway national park, a blue-and-green polka-dotted stingray from the aquarium, and a purple bear Grandma gave me long ago. I never liked the plastic ones much, the dolls and the houses and the race cars. They were too awkward to hug.

So, holding hands with Mom, I bounded straight to the stuffed animal section and found him right away.

He was as yellow as a daffodil, with big, half-moon ears and black buttons sewn in for eyes. He had a bulbous nose, plump legs, and stubby arms held wide open.

“What—what is it?” asked Mom, tilting her head at the creature.

I shrugged. He didn’t look like a moose or a stingray or a bear. He looked like…a thing. A yellow thing.

“You’re sure that’s what you want?” she asked.

I nodded and held his soft body to my chest. His nose pressed into my neck and he fit perfectly in my arms.

I named him Yellow Thing.

Mom had to pry him away from me when we approached the cash register, but he sat on my lap the whole way home.

I introduced Yellow Thing to my other friends right away: Teddy and Squid and Sunshine. They accepted him into the family with grace, budging up to make room for him on the toy shelf. It wasn’t necessary; Yellow Thing would stay in my bed for the time being. I liked to press my nose to his as I drifted off to sleep.

Yellow Thing stayed clutched in my arms through the heartbreaks of childhood: the funny movie ending, having to eat broccoli with my chicken nuggets.

“Time to put Yellow Thing away, Avery,” Mom said whenever I tried to stuff him in my backpack before school.

I stuck out my lower lip and she gave me The Look, so I sighed and stomped upstairs to my room. I always made sure to draw the covers up to his chin—not too high, so he could breathe—and kiss his head goodbye. Teddy and Squid and Sunshine looked on.

Elementary school came and went, and so did Yellow Thing’s time in my bed. I squeezed him onto the end of the toy shelf, next to Sunshine, on the first day of sixth grade.

“I’ve got to be a grown-up,” I whispered to him. He would understand.

But I pulled him off the shelf and snuggled with him that night, just in case he didn’t.

And then came high school, with the tennis practices and the boys and the scholarship applications. Yellow Thing watched as I struggled through essays and the long hours of calculus homework. When I looked up to stretch my neck, I often found myself staring into his button eyes.

The time on the shelf couldn’t dull his fur, which stayed as bright as the sun.

The week before move-in, Mom entered my room and asked what I wanted to take with me to college. I pointed at the reading lamp on my nightstand and the stack of books on my desk, and as I scanned the rest of the room, my eyes met Yellow Thing’s.

He would understand.

Yellow Thing sat in Mom’s attic with Teddy and Squid and Sunshine as I started freshman year, and memories of pushing my yellow friend on the playground swing slowly faded into memories of my travels with roommates and dates with Henry. Yellow Thing collected dust through my college graduation, through my move into Henry’s apartment, through the wedding, through the first house, through the birth of our sweet Liza.

He had disappeared from my mind entirely until Henry and I brought Liza to Mom’s house one afternoon.

“Would you mind going through the attic? Trying to free up space. Liza might find a lot of fun things up there.” Mom winked at Liza and ruffled her hair.

Liza giggled. “What kind of fun things, Gran?”

“You’ll see.”

Henry pulled down the ladder to the attic and I carefully helped Liza climb up.

Boxes upon boxes decorated the ground. Cobwebs swung from the ceiling and around the flickering lightbulbs. A sagging couch with ripped cushions sat in one corner, and a pile of old clothes rested in another. Scratched bookshelves full of dented picture frames, old board games, and faded books lined the walls.

A bright spot of yellow in a crooked bookshelf at the back caught my eye. I crossed the attic in four quick strides and pulled Yellow Thing—squished next to Teddy and Squid and Sunshine—off the shelf.

I gave him a small shake and a shower of dust rained from his fur. He was still that same yellow…thing, with a bulbous nose, half-moon ears, and wide-open arms.

A pang of guilt stabbed my chest when I stared into his button eyes. I remembered when Mom brought me to that store so long ago, and when I tucked him into bed every night. I remembered the day I planted him permanently on the shelf next to Sunshine, after a few cheat nights of cuddling. I remembered when Mom stowed him in the attic while I packed my car and left him forever. 

As Henry rummaged through boxes behind me, Liza chattering at his side, I pressed Yellow thing to my stomach. He seemed so much smaller now—too small to give me a proper hug.

“What’ve you got there, hun?” Henry asked.

I turned around and held up my friend.

Henry burst into laughter. “What is that?”

Liza ran over and held her hands to his cheeks. “It’s a—a—a yellow thing!” She nuzzled her nose against his, and when she hugged him, she fit perfectly in his arms.

Dedicated to Yellow Thing.