HAUNTED BY MY PAST
The Memories I Buried Were Waiting in My Closet
I didn’t know I was about to relive them
I sat on the edge of my bed staring at the boxes I’d pulled from the bottom of my closet. They had been in there for over eighteen months. Most of them contained my daughter’s clothes from her first ten months of life. The months that we lived in the United States.
Losing my marriage, my home, my furniture, and over half of my possessions was enough loss. So I threw my daughter’s clothes into boxes and shipped them to my parent’s house in England. Something inside of me couldn’t bear to leave them behind.
When my daughter and I arrived in England, I shoved the boxes in my closet, unsure of what to do with them.
As the months went by, I needed more storage but didn’t touch those boxes.
Last week, I decided it was time to open them.
My fingers clasped around the edge of the first box’s lid and pulled. Instantly, my eyes zeroed in on the lilac onesie with small, white flowers delicately scattered over the fabric. I placed the lid on the floor next to me as I continued to study the onesie.
She was wearing it the evening he dropped her. I knew he was drunk. She was strapped into her bouncy…
