“I don’t quite know what you mean,” Helen said, folding the loose flap back over the box. “We talked about this already. We’ll just take them out to the dumpster.”
“You don’t want to even look through her personal stuff?” the older man asked, swirling his iced tea around, causing the cubes to knock into the sides of the glass with a harsh tinkling.
“No. I’ve had those boxes for weeks. If I had wanted to look through them I’d have done it by now.” She hefted the heavy carton to her hip and took a long swig of her tea before lugging the box to the door. She nudged the screen door open with her knee and slowly navigated the cardboard through the opening before walking quickly to the large green dumpster at the head of the driveway. The man watched her balance the box on the curve of the dumpster as she swung the lip open and then heaved the box over the side and down into turgid black bags of yesterday’s dinner and kitty litter scoopings. When she came back, there was a look of satisfaction on her face.
“That dumpster smells vile,” Helen said, propping the screen door open and brushing attic dust from her slick shoulder. She added a packet of sugar to her tea, and took another drink form her glass. “There’s something about this Caroline head that makes garbage smell stronger.”
“Don’t garbage stink in Massachusetts?” he asked.
“Well I suppose it does,” she said, ripping the top off of another packet of sugar. “But it doesn’t get as sweltering there. The rubbish doesn’t have the chance to stink like that.” She poured the sugar into her glass and stirred it aggressively. “And my neighbors don’t use so much packaging. We eat more fresh food up there, so there’s less to throw away.”
“You mean fresh stuff don’t stink when it rots?”
Helen set down the long stemmed spoon and turned, one mauve-manicured hand resting on her hip.
“Well I don’t know, Marvin,” she said sharply. “But I know that my dumpster in Springfield does not make me retch when I open it. Not even in August.”
“I guess I’m just confused because you seem to think that this is another planet down here. The garbage smells worse, the people talk different, grocery stores are bad…”
“It is another planet,” she said frantically. “My mother’s planet. I left for a reason, you know.” Marvin held up an arthritic hand of surrender.
“She packed those boxes for you to look at, Helen. I helped her, as any good neighbor would, right before she went to the hospital for her last round of chemo.”
“Well, she should have known better. I came down to fix up her house for sale, but I know what’s in those boxes. It’s all the stuff I happily left behind.”
“Well I’m not throwing Frances’s things out,” he said sadly. “It yours now though, so you do what you want with “˜em.” Helen poured another packet of sugar into her glass, still stirring.
“You know, down here, you can buy the tea already sweetened…?” he offered, standing up.
From his kitchen window, Marvin watched Helen carry the rest of her mother’s boxes to the dumpster, noticing that each time she hefted the dilapidated cardboard over the side she did it more slowly than the last time. After her sixth trip, she paused for a second, sniffing the air as she wiped her forehead with her hand, a look of satisfaction growing on her face. As she went back into the house, she closed the screen down behind her. He shook his head sadly as he fed his dog, his bad hip groaning as he placed the full bowl on the floor.
When he heard the sound of a screen door smack shut, he went back to the window and saw Helen gazing into the dumpster, one hand on her hip, the other still clutching the glass of sweet iced tea.
