Chapter 18: The Closet
1475 Words
Session Two was difficult.
Not because of what Dr. Parker said.
Because this time…
They talked about memories.
Not all of them.
Just one.
“Sometimes our brains retain moments that don’t seem like much,” Dr. Parker began. “But they are packed full of emotion. They can become what we remember life feeling like.”
She smiled softly.
“Think of one day that you still remember.” _
Becca closed her eyes.
Seconds later…
One memory appeared.
__
Fifteen Years Earlier
The house was silent.
Too silent.
All the children were young.
Her oldest was coloring with the middle child at the kitchen table. The baby was sleeping soundly in her crib down the hall.
Becca had spent the entire morning cleaning.
Doing laundry.
Cleaning bathrooms.
Vacuuming.
She wanted everything spotless before Lee got home.
She always wanted everything to be perfect.
She’d learned at a young age that being perfect sometimes earned her a peaceful evening.
Sometimes.
The roast beef was cooked in the oven.
Dinner would be ready on time.
The children were quiet.
Nothing should go wrong tonight.
Then she heard him drive up.
His stomach tightened as soon as she heard his truck pull into the driveway.
Not because something had happened.
Because at any minute something could happen.
The front door opened.
Lee stepped into the house.
He didn’t speak.
He just looked around the kitchen.
Then into the living room.
And back at Becca.
“Where are my blue work boots?”
She knew this was a bad sign.
“The mudroom.”
“No.”
“I checked.”
She frowned. “I put them there this morning.”
“They’re not there.”
He wasn’t yelling…but he was also not calm.
She walked into the mudroom.
Still not there.
She tried desperately to think.
Could she have moved them?
Had one of the children?
“I’ll go find them.”
“You always say that.”
Frantically, she searched in the laundry room.
Garage.
Kids’ bedrooms.
She looked everywhere.
“You know what happens if you keep losing my stuff…”
“I didn’t move them.”
“You’re always making excuses.”
She finally found the boots.
They were in the closet.
Her closet.
She had moved them after she vacuumed underneath the bench, they were supposed to be on.
Relieved, she hustled back into the kitchen.
“I found them.”
Lee looked down at the boots.
And then back at her.
“You made me late.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
Grabbing the boots, he walked out of the house.
Without another word.
The door slammed.
None of the children said anything.
Her oldest quietly began picking crayons off the floor.
Her middle child stared at Becca.
Mom?
“You’re not mad at Daddy, are you?”
“No sweetie.”
He was late because of me, Becca thought. But she said nothing.
“It’s okay. Daddy was just rushing.”
That night…
After the kids were in bed…
Becca sat on the floor of her closet and cried.
She didn’t want Lee to hear her.
She still sat in that closet tonight and cried.
But now she didn’t want anyone to hear. _
Back in the Present
Dr. Parker waited for Becca to compose herself.
“When you think back on that day, what do you notice?”
Becca blew her nose.
“It wasn’t about the boots, was it?”
She shook her head.
“No. Do you know what it was about?”
She took a deep breath.
“I was scared.” Becca sniffled. “Scared that anything I did wasn’t going to be enough.”
The doctor nodded encouragingly.
“You knew you did everything you could.”
“And that’s just it.”
She leaned in.
“In situations like that, children learn very quickly that they can never be sure how their parents will react.”
Becca shook her head again.
“They learn to try and figure out what their parent or parents may need.”
Her chest felt heavy.
“So, they don’t pay attention to how they’re feeling.”
__
Moment of Clarity
Becca could not get that phrase out of her head.
They don’t pay attention to how they’re feeling.
How long had she gone around worrying about everyone else…
“How are you doing?”
“Can I get you anything?”
“How was your day?”
And not once had she stopped to consider how she was feeling?
As she climbed into bed that night, she thought of the closet.
Her closets.
How long had she gone walking through life scared to open the closet door?
Terrified of what emotion she may find lurking inside?
Scared one day it might pop out at her.
Suddenly she sprang from bed and bolted downstairs.
She ran into her closet. _
The Hall Closet
Clothes.
Board games.
Vacuum cleaner.
Box of Christmas ornaments.
It was harmless there.
There was nothing in that closet that was going to explode if she opened the door.
Still…
She couldn’t calm her shaking hands.
Craig walked through the front door.
Gross.
He’d been grocery shopping.
As soon as he saw her, he knew something was wrong.
“Everything okay?” _
She stared at the closet.
And then back at him.
“I remembered something today.”
He gently placed his grocery bags on the counter.
“Do you want me to listen?”
Becca smiled through her tears.
Yeah.
She did.
“I want you to.”
Cleaning Up
They sat on the floor of her hallway.
The closet door stood open in front of them.
Becca told him every detail.
About boots.
About trying to create a perfect home for her children.
And how she ended up sitting in that closet bawling her eyes out while her children slept peacefully.
When she finished recounting the memory…
Craig didn’t immediately reply.
When he did speak…
He had one question.
“Can I do something for you?”
She nodded.
He stood up and walked into the closet.
Then sat down on the floor in front of her.
Right where she imagined she’d sat fifteen years earlier.
He motioned for her to sit beside him.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to help you clean that closet out.”
“What do you mean?”
He smiled at her gently.
“I want to change that memory for you.”
“I can’t change the past, Craig.”
“No.” He leaned in close to her. “But you can start changing how you feel about it.”
She moved to sit beside him on the floor.
The hall closet was tiny.
Impossibly tiny.
Craig bumped his shoulder into a shelf above them, and they both laughed.
“I don’t fit in here very well.”
“No.” Becca giggled. “You really don’t.”
He reached across and took her hand.
“When you get sad about something that happened to me…” He paused and let his words sink in. “I want you to think of this moment.”
He squeezed her hand.
“I sat with you that night.”
In Her Shoes
Becca sat at her bathroom sink that night and stared at her reflection.
She closed her eyes and envisioned herself.
Twenty-eight years old.
Crying on the floor of her closet.
Praying that her children never had to feel the way she felt that night.
When she opened her eyes…
She opened the closet door.
Walked inside.
And sat down beside her twenty-eight-year-old self.
Tears streamed down both of their cheeks as Becca reached over and grabbed her younger self’s trembling hand.
“You deserved better than that.”
“You were perfect.”
“You just forgot…”
Becca smiled through her own tears.
“…that we were loved.”
Outside
Before she went to sleep, she opened her back door one last time.
The porch light spilled onto the lawn just as it had done hundreds of times before.
The chickens were quiet.
The daisies were closed.
And there it sat.
Waiting for her beneath a sea of stars.
The little red door.
Craig had texted her twice since they’d finished talking.
Thinking about you. Don’t feel like you need to reply. Sleep tight.
It was perfection.
No questions.
No judgment.
Just acceptance.
Silently, she smiled and slipped the phone back into her pocket.
She would probably hurt every time she thought of that night in the closet.
Some things never fully healed.
But tonight…
As she thought about that young girl crying on her closet floor…
She knew she didn’t have to cry alone anymore.
Tonight.
And every night.
Someone was right there with her.
- Writer
