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“Shit, I packed all the glasses.”
JJ is mumbling to herself while opening every cupboard in her kitchen…soon to be her former kitchen in about six hours, once everything is swept through and locked up for the last time. The trio has been packing for what seemed like weeks at this point. JJ, Henry, and Michael had a kitchen table meeting about four months ago, and everyone agreed that a fresh start might be good for all of them. JJ was hyper-focused on each of her boys, profiling her own kids to determine if they were just trying to make her happy, or if they were ready for a change.
The truth is, the house held reminders in every room, every drawer, around every corner. While they are mostly fond ones, it almost feels like a haunting. Will lives on in their memories, in stories told around the table, and they all agreed the good stuff would go wherever they did, but it was time for all of them to move on.
All JJ wants is a glass of water, but apparently her kitchen packing skills were too efficient. Henry and Michael had taken an SUV load of boxes over to the new place just now, leaving JJ to attend to some miscellaneous living room packing.
As she slams another cabinet door, she hears a knock. The realtor isn’t due for a walk-through until late afternoon…who is it?
JJ sighs in relief while spying Emily through the small glass window. Emily is standing there with her charmingly sheepish grin, a coffee cup in each hand. JJ throws open the door and huff-sighs.
“Em. You. A godsend as usual.”
“My sole goal in life,” Emily cheeses, handing JJ one of the cups.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was in the neighborhood, I have the day off…figured you might need some caffeine.”
JJ breathes in the latte, slightly vanilla, slightly sweet, not too much. Just how she always takes it. She also clocks that Emily lives at least 30 minutes away on a good D.C. traffic day. She decides to not ask any more questions once the first sip hits, liquid strength coursing through her.
Emily is peeking over JJ’s shoulder into the living room, two big shelves in the mid-packing disarray that is a part of any move out process.
“You need a little help with any of that? Like I said…day off. No serial killers over the weekend, and I’m a little bored.”
JJ grins at the coffee cup lid and meets Emily’s eyes…there’s something in her expression that goes past a simple coffee delivery. She’s not quite ready to think about it, but she’s more than happy for the company today.
“God, yes. I’d love it. I put off these shelves until last. All the family photos, albums…the things that once you take them down, the house feels emptied out.”
Emily hums in understanding, puts her coffee in a sunbeam near the wall since the only furniture in the room now is boxes to be packed, and rolls up her sweatshirt sleeves.
JJ joins her at the shelf, taking one last look at everything together. While it felt like her whole world fell apart suddenly when Will collapsed in the kitchen, now she is pointedly dismantling the last part of this world for good, one frame at a time.
JJ’s jaw quivers while her eyes wander from shelf to shelf. Emily doesn’t say anything, giving JJ the beat she needs to decide where to begin. She was suddenly very grateful for Emily’s presence.
JJ reaches for a collage of the boys’ grade school photos, a smattering of all the years together showing just how much they’ve grown up in this house.
“I remember when Michael got that bike for his birthday. The team was over here for his party…you would have thought you had given him a rocket ship to the moon,” Emily smiles while unrolling the bubble wrap.
“I know it. I’m so glad we had those ridiculous parties where kid birthdays were a good excuse for you guys to come over and hang out next to the bouncy castle with your adult beverages in Toy Story cups.”
“Hey, one of my favorite years was when you let me and Spence get in after the kids had gone to bed. I thought I broke his nose on that one jump.”
“No, but he did lose his glasses for about fifteen minutes. Drama.”
Emily holds the bubble wrapped frame while JJ rips a piece of packing tape off the roll. First one into the box.
JJ turns back to the shelf. There’s a simple silver frame, her and Will in a selfie on the beach in Cabo.
“We look so young and clueless…I guess we were. Our first vacation together after Henry was born. Sandy kept him for four whole days while we drank mai tais and recovered from chasing after a toddler 24/7. We had no clue what we were doing.”
“I remember when Henry was that age, and you’d bring him by the office sometimes. I never really noticed how many sharp objects I kept on my desk until I had to Henry-proof it.”
JJ grins at that memory, another of her to-the-chest smiles when she’s not quite sure where to direct her feelings.
Emily gently takes the frame and wraps it. They keep at this for a while, the boxes getting fuller, the frames all carefully stacked and ready for their new house with new shelves.
Among a shelf full of tchotchkes…one of Henry’s baseball trophies, a shot glass from the Cabo trip, JJ plucks a small glass statue of the Eiffel Tower tucked in the back. She rubs the dust off fondly, and stares at the shelf while handing it to Emily.
“We couldn’t take any photos in Paris, but I bought this at the airport. It’s been on the shelf ever since. It was like my invisible thread while you were gone.”
Emily stalls, bubble wrap in hand. She turns the souvenir over and over, delicately tracing the arcs like a sacred object or a genie lamp.
JJ is trying desperately to keep it on the rails, staring at the near empty shelf, but stealing glances over at Emily, trying to read her. JJ wonders what Emily would wish for right now if given the chance.
Emily takes one more thoughtful beat, then carefully wraps the Eiffel Tower in more bubble wrap than is necessary.
“Can’t leave this one behind. The wine was really good.”
JJ looks up at Emily’s face and sees a full grin for the first time all morning. She can’t help but return it.
They finish the last shelf, JJ exhaling a breath she had been holding since she woke up. Emily is across the room, carefully stacking the boxes in a neat arrangement by the door for the boys to pick up.
JJ can’t name the exact sensation, but she feels her heart pinging like sonar, reaching out across the empty space for the first time in ages.
Turns out the blip coming back is wearing a ragged Quantico sweatshirt and ripped jeans, sipping coffee in her empty living room.
Maybe it’s an ending, but JJ thinks it’s a shift to something else, too. Maybe the answer will get unwrapped from its carefully taped layers of bubble wrap in the new house.
For now, she is simply grateful for the empty shelves.