Broom Clean,” Stuart Barbier

Stuart Barbier

The purchase agreement stipulated the house was to be left broom clean. This wasn’t my mother’s standard—but she’d been gone ten years, and while my father had done what he could, there was still much to do. Sixty years in a house leaves a mark. He had worried about this the last few years. No problem, I told him.

What didn’t he save? Butter tubs neatly stacked, the lids adjacent, just in case. A few had such a case: one for plastic bread bag tabs and another for frozen orange juice can lids. My brother and I staged a fight over the shiny lids, captured by his cell phone, which didn’t record the ensuing silence. He had to drive a day and a half to get back to his job and worried he couldn’t stay. No problem, I told him.

The garage rafters hid boxes of our childhood toys. Under the basement stairs were boxes of our baby food jars, neatly arranged in rows. Trunks of broken clocks awaited my dad’s time. Drawer after dresser drawer divulged collections of ball bearings, puzzles, alarm clocks, gloves and mittens. Still no problem, I told myself.

And then, in a battered metal box, on a shelf with more broken clocks, a packet of love letters chronicling time apart between engagement and marriage.

No broom could help me with that.