Ghosts

Edelweiss called to me from somewhere in the house. It had a music box tin to it, the notes coming out strained and slow, never quite making tempo, as if I was watching the trailer to a horror film.

I knew what it was, a tiny music box I was given as a child. I just didn't know where it was and who had turned the key on the back of the little wooden frame. Being a new mother I jumped up from the bed where I was taking an afternoon nap while Livi slept soundly in her crib. I had to find it and shut it off before she awoke.

I walked out into the hallway and trained my ears for the tinny notes that have always reminded me of my grandparents. I found it on top of a box of photos, the first one a beloved photo of my grandmother and grandfather dressed up, arms around each other and smiling several years before my grandfather passed.

I smiled, shut the guest room door behind me and opened the lid to find a box of ghosts.

Photos after photos of old boyfriends, bad relationships, friends and family members that I'd chosen to forget. They all reminded me of a life I didn't want to claim; memories and mistakes that another girl lived and committed. My heart grew heavy as I saw my young face, full of questions and prepared to do things I'd never admit to.

Should I throw them away before Livi could ask me questions about them? Should I exorcise these memories, choosing only to keep the life I live now? Pretend that life was someone else's? Those people are strangers?

Just last night I'd mentioned to Mr. J that as I get Livi ready for bath time we walk past her mirrored closet doors while she trains her eyes on her little moving legs, proud that she can walk when I hold her hands. My eyes always shift to the mother goading her on, the woman with lines forming around her eyes.

"I've gotten old."

"You haven't."

"I have, babe. All the sudden. I don't even recognize the lines on my face."

"I don't see them."

I smiled last night and smiled again, I like the woman with the lines much better, as I shifted bad memories back into the box. They may one day create cautionary tales told late at night, the ones that keep a young woman with questions in her eyes slightly safer than the one that came before her. I tucked in the music box that pulled me from bed as I shut the lid.

The box now sits on a shelf, and I swear I heard the wood of it creak from the heaviness it bears. But, they are my memories, the things that turned me into who I am, as cliched as that sounds, and they will one day create a story line that even a soap opera couldn't touch.

I'm just thrilled that the ending is sizing up to be a happy one.