“What?” I said, getting off him abruptly and going over to it. I removed a couple of books from inside and lifted it up, holding it protectively. “How could you? This is in my photo. Part of the proof I was there.”
“I only meant that given how bashed up it’s getting, if you put something heavy in it, the bottom might drop out.”
“Well, then, don’t use it. But don’t you dare throw it away.”
Eddie held up his hands as if we were playing cops and robbers. “I won’t, I promise. Sorry!” He grinned at me as though I was a nutcase he loved dearly, and I pulled a face to show him how crazy I could get if I really wanted to, and hugged that box a little tighter.
There was a quiet knock at the door, and I turned to see Esther standing there, holding her hands together in a little prayer.
“Hello, sweetheart,” I said, and put the box down as she came and wrapped her arms round my legs, burying her warm face in my stomach. I stroked my hand over her glossy brown hair, tucked it behind her ears, and gently squeezed an earlobe. I always felt like I wanted to pop one of those earlobes in my mouth like a piece of gum. She pulled away from me and bobbed down in front of the box.
“I like this,” she said, using her finger to outline the image of the little girl, who looked about the same age as her. I realized the girl on the box would be in her forties now, at least, and yet here she was, like a time traveler who had bounced from 1970-something into our attic and now into Eddie’s study. Who knew where she’d end up next?
“Can I have this?” Esther said.
“No,” I said, a little quickly, and Esther just said that was okay.
“What do you want it for?” I added, feeling bad, just as I did every time I said no to the girls.
“I was just going to cut it out or something—she’s so lovely, isn’t she?” Esther said, still looking at the girl from the past.
“Yes, she is,” I said, bobbing down next to my sweet daughter who loved to cut out all the beautiful things she found in magazines and on cards. I once found her, aged six, tongue between teeth, with a tiny pair of scissors and a slim black out-of-date diary that she’d bought for ten pence at a yard sale and never written in. Every page of the diary was edged with shiny gold and she was trying to trim it off. When I asked her why, she said the gold was the best bit and she wanted to separate it from the other part of the diary.
“You’ve got to take the rough with the smooth,” I’d said at the time.
“I don’t understand that,” she’d answered, still concentrating on her cutting.
“I mean that sometimes the best bits are attached to the not-so-good bits, and we just have to accept that.”
“I know what it means, I just don’t understand why we can’t just have all good bits. We’re all good bits: you and Daddy, and me and Evie, and our house. There’s no bad bits.”
“What about when I tell you off?” I’d said.
And she’d stopped cutting and looked at me thoughtfully. “Even when you tell me off, that’s a good bit, because I know you love me. If it was another mummy telling me off, then that would be bad.”
“It really would!” I’d agreed.
But once Esther had trimmed off all that gold, the diary looked worse than before, and the little bundle of shiny strips didn’t look any good either. She’d cried, and we’d cuddled, and I’d thought of my own mum and how Esther was right: how I would love for my mother to be here even if it was just to tell me off about something.
“This box is a bit important to Mummy,” I said to Esther, and just then Evie came into the study, thumb in mouth, wrinkled from having been in there for so long, and her messy hair made her look like she’d just risen from a nap, when in fact she always looked like that: dreamy and warm. I sat properly on the floor and Evie climbed into my lap, head to one side, and stretched out her hand to touch the box as well. For a moment it felt like we were all connected to the box: Esther and Evie touching it, me touching it by virtue of holding Evie, and even Eddie, who was sitting there with arms folded, watching us as though we were a bunch of kittens, connected to it through the carpet that it was sitting on, radiating up through his feet.
“Why is it important, Mummy?” Esther asked, and Eddie leaned down to pass her the photograph.
“Who do you think this is?” he said, and Evie shuffled forward in my lap, her thumb loosening but still slightly wedged behind her teeth. The girls peered at it.
“Is it me?” Evie said around her thumb.
Esther looked from the photo to her sister. “It does look a bit like Evie, but that’s not her dressing gown.” And it was true, Evie was about the same age as me in the photo, and apart from a different haircut, we looked very much alike.
“It’s me,” I said, leaning forward and taking the photo gently, thinking they might pull at it or get spit on it. “And can you see what I’m sitting in?”
“The box!” said Esther.
Evie looked at the taped-up, battered box. “That’s old.”
“Oi! Same age as me, roughly,” I said, squeezing her and pretending to be offended.
“But that’s just a silly old box,” said Evie, “and you are our cuddly mummy.” She snuggled into my armpit, and I felt a rush of joy at the warmth that was coming at me from all directions: from Esther and Evie, and from Eddie, watching over us. And as always, when I was in these moments, I felt an emptiness. As though there were a corridor inside me with a door at one end, and when the rest of me thought everything was wonderful and perfect, the door would open and cold air would rush through and I would remember what I’d always missed. My own lovely mother. My eyes filled with tears and I looked up at Eddie, who nodded and smiled like he knew what I was thinking, but he didn’t, not all of it.
“So can I have this box?” said Esther.
“No,” I said softly. “I need this, and I don’t even know why.”
Evie—pouncing on the fact that she knew I hated to say no—picked just the right moment to ask for something.
“Mummy, can we have some popcorn and watch a film?”
“Now, that is a yes,” I said, and the girls cheered.
Eddie put his headphones back on and turned to the computer. Going to the kitchen, I popped the corn, and the girls snuggled up on the sofa to watch Mary Poppins. Again.
While my family were occupied, I decided to put the box back in the attic where it would be safe from scissors and bins. Upstairs, I stood on a chair in the hallway and pressed the hatch in the ceiling. It clicked and released a heavy ladder that flew down like it was worried I’d change my mind, metal scraping against metal as it descended, trying to take my fingers. I climbed up, the box dangling lightly from one hand while I used the other to grip the cold rungs. At the top I felt about for the cord and pulled it so that the single bulb gave a weak glow, lighting up first one side of the space and then the other as it swung about. Near the edge of the hatch was a chunky yellow flashlight. I turned it on and crawled in, dragging the box in with me.
* * *
THE ATTIC WAS warm—the summer sun was beating down on the roof—and it had a comforting smell like a mechanic’s workshop, both fresh and old, reminding me the attic is not a part of real, everyday life, but a place for storing the past: things we can’t part with, but that we don’t keep at the surface of our lives. Oh, and the Christmas decorations.