In the Closet

While I was in my jammies opening my Christmas boxes with Christmas Vacation playing in the background, Scott was getting ready for work and coaching me on my answers.

"And what are you going to say when your mother asks if we're living together?"

"Sometimes?"

"Noooooo..."

"More often than not?"

"Noooooo..."

In typical fashion, my mother didn't listen to a word I said. When I said, "I'm getting up early to decorate and clean. I'll call you when I'm ready for you to come over," she heard, "Come. Whenever you feel like it. Seriously. And don't call me and let me know you're on your way. Call when you're outside my building."

I was still in my jammies, which consisted of an old Eve 6 concert t-shirt with "Tie me to the bed post" written across the front and boxers. I ran into the closet and switched t-shirts and threw everything Scott owned on the closet floor. All of his jackets and shoes? On the floor of the closet. All of his bathroom products? On the floor of the closet. That picture of his mother on his nightstand? On the floor of the closet. I pushed the closet door closed until the latch clicked and opened the front door for my mother and grandmother.

She said my (mostly) pink tree wasn't as bad as she thought it was going to be. "You know, for Scott's sake," she quickly added when I raised an eyebrow. "When you told me last year you bought all this girlie stuff, I knew it would turn out like this."

"Like what?"

"That you were wasting your money. He'll never let you keep this stuff."

"Mom, this is the first Christmas stuff I was able to afford. I've been using your 25-year-old plastic tree all these years. So many needles had fallen off that it looked like Charlie Brown's tree. It's my stuff I bought to make me happy and I'm proud of it."

"I know," she compensated.

I looked around the apartment and realized that I didn't have to worry about her noticing that Scott lived here. You can't tell. Not just the tree and the garland and wreath--it's all my stuff. When I was using my paychecks to furnish my apartment over the years, Scott was in a different place in his life--namely rehab. When he moved in, he brought his dresser and an entertainment center that I now use as a bookshelf in the bedroom. He doesn't own anything. He seems to be okay with my things; he knows I have plans to replace my hand-me-down couch and my hand-me-down bed. He knows he'll have a say in it.

My mother never asked if he lived there. I did notice later, however, that she pulled a magazine out in the bathroom: Scott's Motor Trend. The address label peeked out from the stack. Luckily for me, it was from his old apartment.