Twenty by Twenty-Six by Eight by Calvin Sharpe

Before my mind became a record that was more skips than songs, the world was about to end. Even worse, the salesman had just arrived.

I see those two, silver tailfins on his sedan gliding over the heat-hazed blacktop like a pair of sharks in deep water. They sailed across the motor court effortlessly and turned. As they did, the chrome hubcaps became tiny supernovas. The driver pulled into a space by the motor court’s office directly beneath a blue, neon “Vacancy” sign,” and the brake lights bled red across the asphalt.

     I remember him stepping out of the car in a tan linen suit. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a paunch around his stomach he didn’t try to hide. He had that thick, black mustache above his crooked teeth; his eyes were hidden by those enormous, black sunglasses. He had olive skin I could never pin down: Arab, Mexican, Italian… Martian, for all I knew. He dabbed a red handkerchief to his bald head and stepped into the rental office, assaulted by the North Wind of the AC.

      Beside me, Dora let out a low whistle.

      I cut my eyes at her.

      “That’s some car,” she said, gesturing with her cigarette. It was sleek and low, the body the color of mercury. It was polished to a cool sheen. I’d never seen one like it.

      I frowned into my beer. I misunderstood her, of course. I realize that now.

      We sat on the porch outside my motel room, drinking Ballantine and smoking Lucky’s, trying to cover the stench of the sickly green, over-chlorinated pool a few doors down.

      Dora stopped by to keep me company most nights. There’d been an accident in my building, a fire or some flooding; I can’t remember which. It had been weeks at the motel already. We’d spend evenings on the porch when we could stand the heat, or watching the set in the air conditioning when we couldn’t.

      The salesman emerged from the rental office, whistling something out of tune and spinning his key around one finger. The burning red “NO” in “NO Vacancy” flickered on over his head.

      He waved. We saluted in kind. Then he took the room opposite mine, directly across the lot.

       I wanted to forget about him immediately and go back to hating our jobs in peace, but instead Dora stared at the car and started talking about Washington or the Dakotas…maybe the Catskills.

       I nodded along like a traitor, not for the first time. When the salesman’s car ceased to be a mirror into America’s wonders, she turned back to me.

       “You alright, Caleb?”

       “Mm? Yeah. The heat,” I said, tugging at my collar as an afterthought.

        “We should call it a night,” she said.

        I agreed. And she drove herself home with a single wave in the rear-view mirror. I stayed on the porch, telling myself I was waiting for the stars to come out.

--

       Before my father died, he gave me his watch and tied his advice around my neck like a noose. The watch wasn’t much: brass trim and a thick, leather band. It lost ten minutes a week. It was, however, one of the most respectable-looking things he, and then I, owned.

       The advice was this: get into the restaurant business. Make money. Take care of my mother. Settle down.

       My father had half-broken his back in construction for nearly forty years to provide for my mother and then me before successfully breaking his neck on a job at the age of fifty-nine. I’ve always suspected his harness was faulty, but I could never prove anything. And suddenly all I had left of my father was a watch, some dozen words of advice, a black suit, and a pine box.

       I moved from Kansas to Nevada, trying to make my fortune. I had nothing in the way of talent or leads, but I had heard there was always opportunity out west.

Two years of disappointing my father for pennies in a lousy office job had been just about bearable. The third broke me.

       It was on the third anniversary of his death that I talked to Dora for the first time. She worked in the same office of the same restaurant supply company in which I was a drone in an ink-stained tie.

       For six months Dora had been a name and a polite smile to which I handed invoices to be filed. But on that day, I sat in my car after everyone else had left, not wanting to stay or leave… not wanting to do anything but weep; she found me, knocked on my window, and told me to roll it down.

      She didn’t ask what was wrong or if I was okay. She told me to wait where I was and then jogged across the parking lot in heels to her own car. She pulled a bottle of whiskey from the sideboard and came back, told me to drink. I did.

      It was like seeing her for the first time: the dark hair she kept short, with roots of Scandinavian gold if you looked for it; her nose, ever so slightly crooked; her porcelain teeth, slightly yellowed by nicotine, in perfect rows when she put them on display. She rarely did.

      We stayed two hours as I poured the loss of my father and my failures far from home out on the curb. She didn’t tell me that it would be all right or that my father was proud of me, because these were not the things I needed to hear.

       It was well after dark when she said, “If it hurts the worst today, it’s because he’s closer than ever. You’re holding on tight.”

       I nodded. She spoke Grief like a second language.

       I waited until the lines in the parking lot stopped blurring and then drove home. She let me keep the bottle. I still have it.

       I don’t think I ever learned anything about Dora’s family, except that they were from West Virginia. When I asked, she said she had “no family to speak of,” but whether she had none left, or just none worth talking about, I couldn’t guess.

       We couldn’t shake each other after that night. She was my best friend through lunches, evenings, long weekends. At the office we would take our cigarette breaks together and swear to each other that we would cut back. We would stand out back and bemoan all the evils of the world together: the Russians, the atom bomb, the beatniks, and how Mr. Caldwell kept staring down her blouse. I called her Pandora once, and she said I wasn’t far off.

And so what if I loved her? That was my mistake to make.

--

      October means very little to a desert. Autumn was hawking its goods in other, better towns than ours. August was long gone, but it only cut our days from a broil to a slow bake.

      It was a Monday, and Dora and I were pinned to a shadow behind the office. I lit her cigarette for her. She had had trouble ever since she slammed her hand in a door a month or so back. We stood there, cutting back to the same half a pack a day we always smoked, when Mr. Caldwell came out. He saw us, and then his eyes slid off Dora as though she didn’t exist. He’d been doing that lately. She must have talked to him about the staring, but she never mentioned it to me.

      “Mathis, get inside,” he said.

       We followed.

       My stomach dropped when I heard Kennedy. Of course I’d voted for him: young, confident, the Great White Hope. I voted for him so I could feel that bit braver when the news came on. Not today.

       Russians. Missiles. Cuba. The “Abyss of Destruction.”

       That was the ball game, wasn’t it? No early warning could stop a nuke from Havana. Russians were putting a gun to our head. Kennedy’s blockade, what comfort was that? The Reds didn’t take “no” lightly. A can-do attitude and a Boston accent couldn’t make me forget that.

       The office closed early. If you had a family, you wanted to be with them. Dora and I didn’t have to speak. We drove to my motel and glued ourselves to the cheap black-and-white set. We had no food, so we didn’t eat. We couldn’t risk being away from the box for a second. So we drank and watched Cronkite quietly sweating bullets.

       When the broadcasts were done, we retreated to separate sides of the bed and pretended to sleep.

       We called in sick the next day, but no one answered. We rode in silence to a drive-in for as much food as we could eat, but the radio did the talking for us. Impending disaster, UN at a loss, possible targets. Dora and I knew that they were testing nukes only a few hours away. We never saw them, but some days, the breeze tasted sour and metallic, and we knew that another bomb had gone off. Would we see the next one? Or would it be too late? It’s hard enough to ignore the voice that says everything is going wrong when it’s in your head; it’s harder when it’s broadcasting on AM and FM.

       Evening found us back at the motel room, transfixed by the screen when a knock came at my door.

       I staggered over, opened the door slowly. The salesman took up the whole doorway. He smiled down at me, his eyes hidden behind those huge sunglasses.

       “Good evening,” he said. The voice wasn’t loud, but it was… expansive, like an actor on stage. And that accent… as hard to place as the rest of him.

In the weeks after the salesman arrived, we started to hear talk of him around the office, the new door-to-door man and all his wares. He sold a set of knives to Pearl Opus, Miracle Protein Powder to James Lynn, and assorted crap to half a dozen others. I pinned him as a huckster from day one, but they never complained.

       “Interesting man,” they said. “Not like the usual lot.”

       “Did you get a load of the car?” Dora asked Pearl.

       “Like something out of a movie,” Pearl sighed.

       I held myself proud for not being taken in by a lousy smile and a shiny car, but then, the rest didn’t see him striding across the parking lot each morning, toying with his keys and grinning at some private joke between him and the world. And then he’d tug some other trick out of his trunk and move it to his back seat before setting off for town.

       Yes, I thought myself rich in wisdom and worthy cynicism. And why not? Feeling clever doesn’t cost anything in the moment. You can spend a whole life paying for it and never notice.

       “I apologize for intruding,” the salesman said at my door. “but the set in my room is broken and…” he trailed off, nodding into my room.

       I wanted to tell him to take a hike. Who’s to say he wasn’t Red, Cuban even?

       “Come on in,” Dora said, at my shoulder. I glanced at her face. She was pale, with dark, worried rings under the eyes. I sighed. If the world was ending, I supposed everyone had the same right to know.

       I stepped aside. The salesman took the chair in the corner of the room, produced cigarette and match like a magic trick, and quietly watched the screen. Dora and I sat on two corners of the bed.

       The set pulsed, flickered gray light. A map of the Atlantic crisscrossed with dark lines of naval deployment filled the screen. And we watched together, in silence, until the night’s broadcast ended.

       The salesman spoke first, with a deep sigh. “Armageddon,” he said, shaking his head. “Bad for business.” He was still wearing those damn sunglasses.

       I noticed Dora was crying, then; silent rivers that met at the corners of her mouth, formed deltas, and trickled south down to her jaw. I think I noticed before she did.

       I said her name. It always made me feel better.

       “I don’t want to die in Nevada,” she said.

       “You won’t die,” I said. I was lying, just like everyone else who’s ever said the words, but I meant it with every part of me. My mouth was dry, but I kept on. “The best men in the world… they’re doing everything they can. You have to hold on hoping.”

       Dora shook her head. “I don’t want to hope. I want to do something.”

       “Hopes become truth everyday,” said the salesman, from the corner. “The right ones, anyway. So let’s imagine the world continues,” he said. He blew streams of smoke from his nostrils and smiled.

       “What will you do,” he said, “Tomorrow, when you do not die?”

       Dora wiped the tears from her face and looked the salesman in the eye.

       “Buy a Samsonite,” she said. “Pack everything. Leave.”

        The salesman turned his nose in a small sneer.

        “What?” she asked.

        “Samsonite? With their ‘compressed fiberglass?’” The salesman shook his head. “Made on an assembly line. No life to them.” A thought broke across his face. “Wait here.”

       He raised his bulk from a corner of the bed and opened the door. He returned, moments later, holding a suitcase. It looked like cheap leather, coal black, until he passed by me. It was skin, but it had scales: a whole pelt, thick, black, and each the size of my thumbnail.

        He passed it to Dora.

         “Soft,” she remarked, holding it in her hands. “Like calfskin.”

         “Twenty by Twenty-Six by Eight. Immense!” the salesman said. “And the exterior? Gen-u-ine.”

         “Genuine what?” I asked. I meant to be petulant. Dora was staring at the bag like it was a plane ticket, like she was already gone. But I heard my voice buckle. I was a window shopper.

         He smiled. “When it looks this good, feels this good… does it matter?”

         “It’s lovely,” Dora said, still stroking the bag. Eventually, she looked up, made the barest offer to give it back.

         “Keep it!” the salesman said. “No charge. A gift for kindly inviting me in.”

         Dora shook her head. “It’s not even my room. It’s Caleb’s.”

         The salesman didn’t break eye contact with her.

         “But you’re the one who said ‘yes,’” he said, pushing the bag back towards her.

         “A gift,” he repeated. Then he turned to me and said, “And I’ll have to do you a good turn before I’m on my way.”

         I ignored him. Dora had found the zipper on the bag, and a thousand tiny teeth split apart as she pulled it open.

         “I could fit half my apartment in here.”

         “More!” the salesman said, smoothly. “If you know what you’re doing. But let me give you a piece of advice, young lady. With a bag like this, you should pack everything. Every possible thing you could need, every comfort, every keepsake, every blessed thing you can think of...”

He pointed to the unpacked boxes around my room, mini-skyscrapers of cardboard in limbo.

“…Then,” he said. “You leave it behind. That’s the only way to travel.”

Dora inched herself closer to the salesman. “Is that right?”

“Sounds like a lousy use of a suitcase,” I muttered.

“Travel light,” the salesman said. “Go far! Keep going. It’s the only real travel. Anything else is your old life with new wallpaper.”

“…How’s that working out?” I asked, flatly.

The salesman flashed his uneven teeth my way, unoffended.

“Freeing,” he said. “When I was a boy, my father and I took a stroll along a lake. We walked silently for hours, watching the light on the surface, silver, then gold… then red, as the night came. I remember walking in his shadow. I was small, then. He… was a colossus. I will never forget it. Before we left, my father turned to me. He said,  ‘Son, anything you can’t walk away from is a prison.’  He didn’t like prisons. Neither do I.”

Dora nodded. I frowned. My father had told me the opposite. Keep your promises. Stay where you’re needed. Do what you need to do. If he ever thought of that as a prison…

         “Then everything’s a prison. What kind of thinking is that?” I asked.

         “The kind he lived by,” the salesman said, with a rueful smile. “I never saw him again.”

         Dora was inching towards him again, fascinated. I’d had enough.

         “It’s getting late. I think I need to sleep.”

         The salesman nodded, rising to his feet. “I’ve intruded long enough. Thank you for the hospitality.”

         He walked towards the door. Dora got up and followed him, still holding the bag.

         “Thank you,” she said.

         The salesman waved off the gratitude like cheap smoke. He opened the door, and across the lot his car was waiting, as ever. Dora stared, again.

        “Your car’s beautiful,” Dora said. “What kind is it?”

         “It’s old-world,” the salesman said, all modesty. “…But she is a wonder.”

         The salesman looked distant for a moment, then returned to himself. He patted the bag. “Remember, pack it full. Leave it behind. You’ll be glad you did.” He winked.

         Dora closed the door behind him. Dora collected what few things she’d brought with her: hairbrush, a small purse. She took the rest of her cigarettes and threw them in her new bag.

         “It’s going to be all right,” I told her. “You don’t have to go anywhere.”

         She didn’t respond.

        “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

         “Good night, Caleb.”

         I lay awake for hours, wondering if she’d still be there in the morning. I called her the next morning before dawn, and told her we needed to go in to work. The world was still there, despite Russia and Cuba and all the missiles in the world. It was like those Tex Avery cartoons. If we kept on walking out beyond the edge of the cliff like it was still there, maybe we could make it to the other side.

         We met at the office. It was a miserable day. Every gasp of paper shuffled in our hands, every scratch of typewriter keys against the doors in our head, every footstep behind our back, whispered in our ears: “the Russians are coming with their bombs… you’re not safe.”

         Word trickled in. The Russians were at the quarantine zone. Their ships had stopped just outside. There we were at the edge of the cliff, our toes hanging off into nothing.

         I found my way to Dora’s desk. I rattled a carton of Lucky’s in one hand.

         “Join me?”

        Dora looked like a blank page.

         “I don’t smoke.”

         “Then I can take yours. Want to join me?”

         She shook her head. “I hate the smell.”

         Minutes were crucified on the clock.

         She visited my room again that night, watching the news in silence with a beer in hand. The situation was still fraught. The ships near the quarantine weren’t alone. Red submarines were lurking under the surface.

         She came in late Thursday morning. I sat at my desk, not working, not even pretending to work, just watching the door, holding my breath.

         I almost missed her. Her hair, dark for as long as I’d known her, was blonde. There wasn’t a trace of dye left. I thought it might be a wig. The ladies of the office gathered around, chirping. Caldwell stared stupidly from the door frame of his office. Dora still wasn’t smoking.

         The military went to DEFCON Two on Thursday. On the news, they said it was the highest alert in American history. Dora didn’t come over that evening. She mentioned something about errands.

         On Friday, the world held its breath. The CIA said that the missile construction in Cuba was continuing, accelerating.  Dora didn’t come into the office. She didn’t answer her phone.

         On Friday, I prayed.

         Late Saturday night, there was a pounding on my door. I wasn’t sleeping, couldn’t sleep if I wanted to. I pulled myself from the bed. I hesitated, but the knocking was desperate, lashing against the door.

         I remember thinking, Where’s the fire?

         I opened the door. Dora was there. I thought I might be dreaming, or drunk. She didn’t look right. She pushed her way into my room.

         “I need your help.”

         “Of course.”

         She peeled open the closet at the back of my room, slung her bag to the floor.

         “I need you to hold on to this for a couple days. Don’t look inside, just forget it’s there, but… Can you do that?”

         “Dora, what’s wrong—“

         “I need you to look after it for a couple days!” she repeated, half-hysterical. I took a step closer, and she turned her head. “Just for a few. Just… keep it here, please.”

         “But why—“

         “It’s a favor, Caleb. Just a few days.”

         I stared at her. She still didn’t look right. Was it make-up? No. Those rings under her eyes, could one be a bruise? …No. It was like my vision had gone blurry staring at her, there was something, something…

         “Caleb? Do I have to ask someone else?”

         “…No. I’ll do it.”

         For a second… the thinnest second… she smiled. And then I saw what was wrong. Her teeth were straight as ever, but the nicotine stains were gone. Her nose, always crooked, always just so… it was straight.

I’d never seen something so perfect and wrong.

         She walked up to me. She grabbed my hand, squeezed it. Then she kissed my cheek. She had never done that before.

         “Thank you, Caleb.”

         She turned for the door.

         “If he comes back…” she said. “The salesman. Give back the bag. I won’t need it anymore.”

         “Dora, talk to me, please. It’s going to be okay, I know it is.”

         “Good-bye, Caleb.”

         I watched her step into the car. I watched the headlights blink awake. I watched her back out, and then drive past the office. The sign said:

         “Vacancy.”

--

         The next day it was over. Khrushchev announced to the world that the missiles were being dismantled. No world-enders left in Cuba. Kennedy gave the country a $100,000 smile, and the country could breathe again.

         And I waited… but Dora didn’t come back. Around the office Monday, people kept asking me where she was, had I seen her?

         “That’s enough,” said Caldwell, around lunch. “We’ll hear from her when we hear from her. Let’s get back to work.”

         When I came back to the motel, I stared at the bag.

         I had to open it. Who needs to hide a bag in the middle of the night? What if she was mixed up in something illegal, dangerous? Drugs. Guns. The salesman came to mind, in a cloud of ashy smoke, eyes hidden by black mirrors. I needed to…

         It’s a little late for lies, isn’t it? I worried there was something illegal in the bag, sure. But I would have opened it anyway. If I had sworn on my mother, I don’t think I could have resisted. A glimpse in her head, that’s all I needed. A glimpse.

         I brought the bag to the bathroom, where there was space on the floor. I sat on the lip of the bathtub, unzipped the metal teeth of the bag, and turned it over.

         Here’s what I found inside: a white handkerchief with a bloodstain, a house key, a college class pin from ’59, a letter addressed to Dora signed “G,” a silver cross necklace, a hospital bill for eighty-five dollars... and pictures. Pictures of two girls (one Dora, the other a sister or maybe a cousin) standing by a small house with a tall man holding their shoulders, pictures of women I didn’t recognize, pictures of mountains thick with pine trees, pictures… A picture of me, my phone number at the motel scrawled quickly on the back.

         At the bottom of the bag was a wedding ring. A man’s wedding ring.

         I threw the wedding ring back in the bag, zipped it most of the way closed.

         I sorted through the rest. I didn’t recognize any of it. Not a piece. If I was looking into Dora’s mind… it was the very first time.

         Late became early. I left Dora’s treasure trove on the floor, pulled myself into bed. I turned out the lights behind my eyes.

__

         “Give it back, Dora!”

         “You said anything, Joe. This is what I want.”

         “Don’t play games. What do you want me to tell my wife?”

         “I don’t care what you tell her.”

         “Don’t get smart!”

         I sat up in bed. Dora. I heard Dora. She was back, and she sounded so terribly sad. She was… fighting. I recognized the other voice, too. It was Caldwell.

         “Get away,” she said.

         The walls rattled and Dora called out. I jumped out of bed. The room was still dark. The noise was coming from the bathroom.

         “Dora!” I tried to open the door, but it was jammed. I threw my shoulder into the door; there was a crash from the other side, and I fell backwards.

        I heard Dora panting.

        “Give back the ring, or you’re out of a job!” Caldwell shouted.

         “If you touch me again,” Dora said. “I’m going to your wife. To your kids. Think your father-in-law will let you run the office then?”

Caldwell lowered his voice. “Why are you doing this to me? Didn’t we have a good time?”

         When she answered, Dora’s voice sounded hollow. Vacant. “We had a time. And now it’s over.”

         The door creaked opened.

         On the doorframe, just beside the knob, there was a fresh bloodstain, in three thin lines.

         There was no one inside the bathroom, just Dora’s possessions scattered all over the floor and the black bag, which moved. It trembled on the floor, like muscle rippling under skin.

         I kicked the bag. It stilled. I kicked it again. Nothing. I turned it upside down, looking for the ring… but it was gone.

         “Jesus,” I whispered.

         At my window, light flickered.

         I left the bathroom, slammed the door. I peered out the window. It was still full dark, and I saw the salesman, smoking beside his car. He started walking in my direction.

         The red neon of the “NO Vacancy” sign flickered on and off as he walked towards my door, his body glowing red, his face a long, dark shadow.

         “NO” “NO” “NO” “NO”

         “NO!” I shouted, drawing the curtains. I moved for the door, numb fingers grasping for the deadbolt, scrabbling, stupid—

         The door opened, and the salesman walked through.

         “Evening, friend,” said the too large voice. “Can I offer some assistance?”

         I backpedaled. “Get out!”

         “And leave you alone? My conscience would never allow it.”

         I stared at him. I said the words before I could stop myself: “What are you?”

         The salesman gave his oily, familiar smile.

         “Nothing so crude as to warrant a ‘what,’ friend.”

         “That bag you gave Dora. It’s… something’s wrong with it.”

         “Don’t insult my professional pride,” The salesman said evenly. “It is not what you expected, perhaps. But wrong? Never. The bag has a purpose and it fulfills that purpose. It is insistent on it.”

         He strolled past me. He glanced into the bathroom and looked at the bag, and the debris lining the floor.

         He wasn’t making sense; none of it was making sense. “What does it do?”

         The salesman turned back to me, glancing around my room.

         “Most possessions are additions,” he said. “A car, A gun. They have their purposes. Perhaps, too, they have sentimental value. Like a letter from a sweetheart. A trophy on a shelf. They add. And then they add up. You surround yourself with them and you know what you have?”

         “What does it do?” I repeated.

         “A prison,” he said, shaking his head. “Another prison. Most possessions add. The bag… subtracts. It takes away things you don’t need. It takes them away completely, and then… there is nothing left.”

         Subtraction. I thought about the cigarettes. There one day, then gone. And not just the cigarettes, but the need for them. The nicotine on her teeth. The part of her that smoked them with me. Then I thought about the crooked nose. I thought of the picture of me.

         I stood up, shouted at him.

         “If you knew, then why would you give it away?”

         The salesman took a step closer. He reached inside his jacket pocket. I stared, waiting for a knife, a gun. Two black disks above his mouth stared me down serenely.

         The salesman pulled out his red handkerchief. He dabbed the corner of his mouth, then replaced it.

         “I don’t like prisons, friend. And I know one when I see it.”

         He leaned closer.

         “It scares you,” he said. “I can see that. I can take it away, if you like. I can pack it full with everything she left behind, and take this scary thing and be gone. I owe you a good turn.”

         I looked at my hands. I wanted it gone. I wanted him gone. I wanted him to take the bag, disappear onto the highway, and never come back, but…

         “Take the bag,” I said. “But leave her things with me.”

         “No,” said the salesman. “I’ve had this discussion with your friend. She knew what she was leaving behind.”

         I thought about everything she had left in the bag. I thought about everything she wanted to subtract.

         I thought about the picture of me.  She would never come back, and if she did… would I even recognize the new Dora?

         In the bathroom, I heard a thump and a rattle.

         “Time is wasting,” said the salesman. He leaned in, put a hand on my shoulder. “Should I take this thing away?”

         I was sweating. It was too hot in this room, too full. I looked away from the salesman.

         “She walked away,” the salesman said, his voice quiet. He wasn’t speaking to the room anymore, just to me. “So can you.”

         I thought of Dora walking out the door.

         “…No,” I muttered.

         “That’s your decision,” said the salesman, removing his hand from my shoulder. “But that bag is insistent. It wants to be used. If it isn’t fed… it lashes out.”

         The salesman leaned down, removed his sunglasses, and all I could see were his eyes. They were black as oil, black as scales.

         “Can you walk away from this, my friend? Can you let it go?”

         “Just… hold on. Please?”

         The salesman replaced his glasses and shook his head.

         “No,” he said. “It seems you cannot.”

         He turned his back to leave.

      “Wait, please! Do you know where she went? Do you know where to find her?”

      The salesman turned back. He gave me a small, toothless smile that I didn’t understand.

“I think some time with that bag might do you good,” he said, and walked out the door.

He got into his silver bullet on four wheels, and the tail fins swam away.

       And I was alone again.

--

       That was months ago. I’m losing track out of just how many. I’ve kept the same room at the motel, extended stay. The salesman was right about the bag. It wants to be used. I can’t just buy a hat or a ring at a shop and feed them away. It’s hungry. It needs substance. And if I don’t feed it until Dora comes back…

       I’ve had to keep a list of the things I’ve given away, or else I don’t even know what’s missing. It looks like I started small. Spelling bee ribbons. A swimming trophy from camp. Then more. A cousin I can’t recall. A picture of someone named Tricia. The memory of my childhood home. My best friend in school. Every night a little more. Every day a little less.

My boxes are nearly empty.

           I think of my father while I empty my cardboard boxes, choosing what to give away. My father had given his health, his strong years, for my mother and me. He had broken his body on the altar of love for his family and then given everything else. That was love. Love was giving all. And I know I can do the same, have to do the same, because I learned from the best. I don’t have to believe in an insufficient love.

           I see Dora out in public some days, in strangers. I think to myself what she would have to subtract to be the girl in the window. The woman at the salon. The smiling face on the billboard. And I don’t know. You can love a person without knowing them.

           I like to think that she’ll come back soon. When I sleep, she’s always right outside the door. Her hair is dark. Her nose is crooked. A cigarette hangs from the corner of her mouth. In my dreams, I never tug at the clasp on my father’s watch. I never hold it in one hand with the bottle she gave me the first night we talked in the other and stare into the empty metal teeth and sooty scales waiting in the dark.

           At sunset, when we would have been together, I think about Dora. I think maybe I did know her, at least a little, and I hope that she’ll come back and I won’t have to choose.

           But at night… at night I think about Pandora and how hope was the last thing in her box, too.