What IS in a name AND a little box

I couldn’t wait to escape from the office. I watched the big hand hit the twelve; the small hand was between the five and six. I almost sprinted towards the door.

Shouting goodbye to the only person I really connected to in the building I rushed through the double glass doors – spotlessly sparkling as usual – and reached my car in record time.

As I went to shut the car door I looked down as something caught my eye. A small box sat on the ground, all on its own with nothing next to it. It looked as if it was made of tin or some sort of metal and I reached down and scooped it up. There was something written on it but the writing was very small. I would need to put my glasses on.

With the tiny box in my hand I shut the car door and sat down, reaching into my bag for my specs. “Well I never” I uttered loudly and in disbelief. “It’s got my name on it. Rachel. The slightly rusty tin box had the word Rachel written on the side of it. I pulled off the tight fitting lid and looked in but it was empty. I could smell a sweetness coming from the inside, as if an aftershave or perfume had been sprayed into it. ‘Well that’s a mystery of life’ I thought to myself and put the tin box on the passenger seat next to me.

 I put the windows down to half way and lit up a cigarette. These dreadfully unhealthy sticks were the only thing getting me through at the moment.

It wasn’t that I hated my job, I quite liked book keeping – although my brother told me he thought it was like going through a tunnel at a very slow rate and never seeing light at the end of it. His experience was from when he was at university and used to do ‘the books’ for Uncle Jethro, but he also had to sit and listen to Uncle Jethro regaling stories of his days in the war, how ungrateful the youth of today were and that all grocery stores were day light robbers, so no wonder John hated book keeping!

Anyway I didn’t have to speak or listen to anyone in my office if I didn’t feel like it. Most of them were a great deal older than me and unless I went up to them and started a conversation it didn’t happen…except for Rosalyn. She was my age and very funny to talk and listen to. The only reason she worked where we did was to save money and travel the world – “a means to an end” she would say. “Why don’t you come with me?” she asked me several times “It would be so much fun and imagine the trouble we could get into?”

It did sound very exciting but I cared for my elderly parents and until they, well….left this earth shall we say, I couldn’t really go anywhere too far away.

That’s where my brother John was clever. When he saw the signs of what was starting, such as the increase in the number of visits to the doctors for both Mum and Dad, their lack of enthusiasm for the things they used to love like bowls and walking, and even their moaning and groaning about matters that once upon a time wouldn’t have bothered them, he decided to finally marry his long-time partner and move to Australia!

Of course John would ring up every now and then to see how our parents were, occasionally even doing face time, but the once a week steadily turned to once every month or even two months, and strangely enough he always had a sudden phone call to answer. After about ten minutes of conversation John’s wife in her winey voice would call out “John you have a phone call and I think it sounds important”. I wonder how a phone call can sound important. Maybe bells and whistles start going off in the background, a trumpet sounds and melodic voices sing out…

So I was the only sibling left to care for them. It’s not that I really minded, after all I hadn’t had a boyfriend for at least eighteen months, so no worries about me wanting to go out and enjoy myself.

Ben was never the kind of boyfriend to stand for a cancelled date even if one of your parents was sick or needed you. He would say “Put them into bed with a bucket next to them and tell them to ring you if they ‘desperately’ need you”.

He said this to me on more than one occasion and when I recoiled in horror, he couldn’t understand why, got very cross with me and took his cousin out instead of me. It could have been worse; at least it was just his cousin.

But I knew I couldn’t continue to go out with him after we had booked to go away for our ‘second year of dating’ anniversary.

We were driving to a lovely house in the country for the weekend. It was quiet, secluded and so picturesque. Unfortunately my mother had fallen and broken her leg the week before. My dad wasn’t confident in looking after her on his own, and to be honest I wouldn’t have left her with my dad! He would have been so engulfed in watching the sport on television, probably not put his hearing aid on (as usual) so he wouldn’t have heard her even if he did remember he was supposed to be looking after her!

“Don’t worry” said Ben “My cousin Belinda is a nurse. She is happy to come and live with your parents for the weekend. It will suit her fine because she’s doing a bit of ‘couch surfing’ at the moment” adding “She takes a bit of money just to cover petrol and anything she needs to buy, but it’s not much”.

“Why doesn’t she have her own place Ben? Is she still nursing?” I asked him. I mean I needed to know that I was leaving my elderly parents with a responsible person for the weekend.

“Oh yeah, yeah she was working up until a few weeks ago. She lost her job but it wasn’t her fault. It was a misunderstanding and she won’t stand for that sort of thing”.

“What sort of thing?”

“Just that it wasn’t her fault”.

“But what wasn’t her fault Ben?”

“He sighed, getting exasperated with my questions “I’m not quite sure, but she’s a great nurse so the weekend will be fine, ok?”

It wasn’t ok but when I met her I knew I would be able to tell what she was really like. I was usually a good judge of character so if anything was not right then I would see through her!

I hoped my ‘judge of character’ radar was working! We left on Friday after work for our weekend away leaving my parents in what we thought, or perhaps it was just what ‘I’ thought was very capable hands. Ben would have known what his cousin was really like but I think men who are taking their girlfriends away for the weekend will perhaps put everything out of their minds but that!

I told my parents that if they needed me at all just to ring me. I had double checked that my number was in their phone, knowing that it had been for over two years now but wrote it down on two pieces of paper just to be sure they had it! They seemed quite happy with Elizabeth as I did and waving to them from the car to the lounge window, we took off.

We had a great weekend. And to be honest because I hadn’t heard from my parents I didn’t think about them too much! They were probably having a great time with Elizabeth.

We arrived home on the Sunday mid-afternoon. Elizabeth’s car wasn’t outside the house so I thought maybe she had taken Mum and Dad for a nice drive somewhere. It was a lovely spring day and the bulbs were blooming profusely everywhere you looked. Flowers brightened up the roadside verges so rushed drivers could at least enjoy seeing the rows of coloured heads nodding to them as they sat in lines of traffic.

But no, Elizabeth hadn’t taken them for a drive. Both of my parents were sitting in the lounge room watching television. The curtains were still drawn and the room seemed stuffy. Ben hadn’t even come in but rushed off as he was playing squash with a friend.

“Hello” I called out popping my overnight bag in the hallway.

“Hello dear” called back my mother, but as I thought, Dad hadn’t even heard me!

I walked past them both and opened the curtains and a window. I noticed a couple of empty burger boxes on the coffee table. “Oh burgers I see, were they tasty?” I asked

“They were ok but as you know I don’t like pickle, and I told that girl, what’s her name?”

“Elizabeth”.

“Yes her, but she said we couldn’t be fussing around with taking stuff out of burgers, so I just took it out myself”.

My Dad had by now noticed that I was home, taken his eyes off the television and smiled at me “Hello love, nice weekend?”

“Great thank you Dad. How was yours?”

“It was ok love. The girl had to leave yesterday afternoon so we were on our own, but we managed”

“Elizabeth left yesterday afternoon?” I said feeling myself getting angry “Did she say why?”

“Oh something about getting the offer of a room for a few weeks, but to be honest I couldn’t understand it all”

“When did you have the burgers?” I asked, feeling that I wasn’t going to be happy about much Elizabeth had done.

“Oh when was it Charles?”

“What’s today?” he replied and I butted in

“It’s Sunday, so what did you have for dinner last night Dad?”

“Let me see” and he strained his mind to think that far back. “Oh yes, it was fish and chips. Your mother reminded me that they delivered to your door now so I rang them up” he sounded very proud of himself!

“How about we turn the tv off, I help mum with her shower and you have one after dad. I’ll take you both for a lovely drive, ok?”

“Oh that sounds grand. That girl said showering wasn’t included in the cost for the weekend, so we both need one”.

I was so angry and disappointed, firstly in myself for not seeing Elizabeth for what she was, and secondly and more importantly for Ben being such a selfish and untruthful person (he must have known what his cousin was really like). “If there is one thing I know” I said out aloud, and my mother must have heard me because she called out “Yes what’s that?” so I told her “I’ve finished with Ben”.

So here I was, single, no prospects of going away and having fun and basically just a bit miserable with life.

I didn’t know how long I had been sitting in my car. I had already put out my cigarette, opened my car windows fully. I started the engine and drove towards home. Office duties were finished for the day, and nursing duties about to begin!

I remembered that we needed some milk for home so I stopped by the local shop to get some. It had started raining quite heavily and as I ran from the car to the deli door I got wet. There were a lot people inside the shop and when I got back to my car I saw that I had left my windows down and the front seats were wet. “Oh what an idiot I am “I chastised myself loudly sitting down and getting a wet bottom. I felt tired and a bit flat but as I looked over at the little box I was taxiing home, strangely I felt a surge of excitement or ‘something’ wash over me. ‘How weird’ was all I could think.

The evening was nothing out of the ordinary. I cooked dinner for the three of us, showered my mum, re-washed the dishes my dad insisted on doing after our meal (even with his glasses on he found it difficult to distinguish between clean and dirty!) and then we all sat down to watch some television.

I remember the box I had found and dug it out of the bottom of my handbag. “Look at this Mum” I said as I handed it to her. “I found this on the ground next to my car after work. How odd that it has my name on it don’t you think?”

“Oh yes I see the ‘Rachel’.  I do think that is rather intriguing” she said trying to pull the lid off. With one last pull she succeeded “Mmmm that’s a lovely smell coming from the inside. What’s that?”

“I don’t know, it was already in there”

“What’s in there?” asked my dad after waking up from his dozing. He had no idea what we were talking about and I couldn’t be bothered explaining so I just told him “Just a nice perfume in a little box, that’s all”.

“Which boyfriend gave you perfume in a box?”

My patience was dwindling, so I told my dad it was someone at work who had given it to me, and this seemed to satisfy his curiosity as all he said to me was “Oh righty o then”!

A fortnight later I got the disappointing news that Rosalyn was giving in her notice and leaving in three weeks. I felt really gutted. I would miss her so much.

She of course still said to me for one last time that even though she was happy to travel alone, it would be fantastic if we went together. “I know Ros, but I can’t. I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. I would love to spread my wings, travel and have fun but my parent need me. I would never forgive myself if I didn’t care for them. You never know, I might get my brother to come and look after them for a few months, although now that ‘Winnie the whiner’ is having a baby, and twins at that, he won’t be allowed to move far from her side!”

I missed Ros from the moment I knew she was going but when I went in to the office each day and she wasn’t actually there, that’s when I really noticed the void.

Her replacement was starting in a fortnight. I asked if anyone had information on ‘Jessie’, like where she came from or her age, but they didn’t. I thought that knowing my luck she would be an ‘oldie’ like all the others still here. ‘I might look for another job if she’s really old’ I thought to myself ‘between the people I work with and my parents I’m only mixing with geriatrics!’

I had placed the little tin box on the dressing table next to my bed. It made me happy to lie and stare at it. I thought I might be going a little mad getting joy out of just looking at something! It got worse when I took the lid off and the gentle perfume wafted ever so slightly in the air, leaving me feeling totally content with life. I could get consumed with negative thoughts, but as soon as the sweetness hit my nostrils, my thoughts changed. I couldn’t understand or explain it but I didn’t really care. I just hoped that the perfume inside the box never dried out!

I hugged my parent’s good bye as I left for work, making sure that they were both ready for their day of reading, television, and sitting in the garden and snoozing! Sometimes in a mad moment I wished I was old and retired! I called out to mum that I would be meeingt my new off sider today and left.

Something strange was going on. As soon as I stepped into the foyer of my work building I smelt it, the sweet, gentle and calming perfume. How had it escaped from my box? ‘Oh please don’t leave my box’ I begged.

I needed to get to my work station and sort my thoughts out. The perfume seemed to get stronger as I neared my desk. As I glanced at the chair that Rosalind used to occupy I could see that it wasn’t a woman at her desk but a man. A very handsome man too.

He stood up and walked towards me extending his hand “Hello I’m Jessie” he said in a lovely deep voice. As I took his hand and replied “Hi I’m Rachel” I knew the source of the perfume, no, aftershave. It came from Jessie. I couldn’t get enough of it, and didn’t want to let go of his hand!

“I’ll have my hand back any time you like” he said and we both laughed. His blue eyes sparkled as he threw his head back.

I don’t know where the box I found came from but I knew it had something to do with Jessie and I. That little piece of tin with the fragrance inside had given me a new lease of life. I looked forward to going to work every day. I was excited at the thought of seeing Jessie and he told me that he felt the same way.

I was calmer and more patient with my parents and I could tell they felt it too. I would bring Jessie home to see them one of these days.

Life was good.

Somethings you just can’t explain, you just enjoy them.