Moving Day

It was late Autumn, and the wind had a harsh, dry bite. Dead leaves skittered across dying grass and into the driveway as I surveyed a poorly maintained lawn, my mind bristling with ideas for improvement. It was moving day. We had arrived hours before the movers were scheduled to get started so we could enjoy the empty space. A bare foundation upon which we’d build our lives. We stood in the empty living room, our arms around each other, separated only by thick layers of winter jackets. Hopes, dreams, opportunity, they all whirled around us, silent and unseen. I constructed a visual living space in my mind that was undoubtedly far different than the one in her head. Dark oak wood, brass, warm yellowed lighting, and worn leather furniture supplemented with plush red accents. No matter what the living space eventually looked like there was only one thing that mattered: that we were in it together.

She turned to me smiling, bright white teeth framed by lipstick perfectly tinted to match her olive skin. Bold, glistening, brown eyes, the perfect shade to compliment her auburn hair. She gave me a kiss and trotted excitedly out the door for another box. Neither of us had spoken a word. I stepped to the bay window in the corner of the living room and couldn’t help but take stock of where I was and what I had. A woman that I was totally committed to, and she to me. A satisfying job in which I answered only to myself, providing mental health services to the members of a beautiful, seemingly forgotten, rural community. A new home in which to raise a beautiful family. I felt as if my joy would burst forward from my chest in a brightness so luminescent it would blot out the sun. I couldn’t have been happier than I was in that moment.

Warmed by my introspection, I turned from the window and walked along the wall of the living room toward the hallway admiring the hardwood floors, the soft walls, and the still lighting fixtures. I turned down the hall and ran my hand down the molding that framed the doorways and acknowledged the detail in the baseboards. Halfway down the hall, something caught my eye. Something out of place. A glimmer of light. I took a few steps closer to the door facing me at the end of the hallway. The door led to a bedroom. But there, centered high in the face of it, was a peephole.

A peephole? In a bedroom door? The door must have been standing open during our initial walk through and we’d overlooked it. For such a small thing, it shocked me. I stepped closer and examined it.

Unceremoniously, I placed my forehead against the door. My eyelashes brushed against the faded metal ring encircling the scratched, faded fisheye lens. I expected to see the inside of the bedroom. Instead, a beautiful summer landscape engulfed me. A blue sky, spotted with clouds sat above the vibrant green of thick foliage. My vision swam, and I was looking down at dirty white tennis shoes, the kind we might have worn in junior high. One foot was extended in front of me, wobbling, as the other foot balanced on a short brick wall.

I slammed my hands against the door and pushed myself away. I pressed my back into the wall of the hallway, wide eyes fixed on the small circle of light in the middle of the door. My breathing was fast and shallow. I felt dizzy. What the hell was that?

Mona had strolled happily into the entryway to the hall with a small box in her hands.

“What are you doing?” She hadn’t noticed my shock.

“C’mere, c’mere, c’mere.” I whispered harshly, beckoning wildly. “Look at this!”

She placed the box down as her features twisted into an amalgam of confusion and suspicion. “What?”

“That! Look!” I stabbed at the peephole with my finger.

“The peephole?” She asked, concerned with my level of excitement more than the out-of-place hardware. She wasn’t whispering and for some reason, it drove me mad.

“Yes! Look into it!” My voice was scratchy and low. She stood ever-so-slightly on her tippy-toes and placed her eye centimeters from the glass. I watched, expectantly. She dropped to her heels, raised her hands and let them fall against her thighs, her puffy jacket whispering with her movements.

“Okay?”

“What?” I exclaimed. I rushed to the door and pressed my face against it. The scene was what I’d expected to see before, an empty room flooded with light from the window in the far wall. I backed away, my mouth gaping.

“Are you okay?” She asked, placing a hand on my shoulder.

I turned towards her. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m…I’m fine.” I shook my head and turned to face her fully. I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her in for a kiss. We started towards the entryway and she picked up the box.

“The cooler’s still in the back seat. If you’ll grab it, I’ll make some sandwiches.” And she was off towards the kitchen.

I watched her go. I turned and looked down the hallway. The small dot of light in the door stared back.

That night, we were sitting on our recently delivered couch in our newly purchased home eating freshly popped popcorn as we watched an old black and white movie on a tv that sat on the floor and I lied to her for the first time.

I told her I had to go to the bathroom.

I walked to the hallway and pulled the bathroom door closed from the outside, making sure the sound of it closing would be audible over the noise from the tv. I waited a moment to make sure she wasn’t moving around and then turned back toward the end of the hall. It was nighttime, but there was still a pinpoint of light where the peephole sat in the door’s face.

I took soft, slow steps, glancing over my shoulder once or twice. When I came to the door I licked my dry lips and took a deep breath. I placed my eye against the peephole once again.

My head swam as I felt the sensation of looking down even though I was standing upright, facing forward. There in my vision were the same worn-out tennis shoes, the same brick wall from before. It was only a couple of feet high, and it was surrounded by dense green grass. It took me a moment to realize that the sounds I was hearing weren’t from the TV, it sounded like a gathering of people. A sporting event. A baseball game? Something felt oddly familiar about the situation.

“Hey!” A voice in a harsh whisper. I gasped and jumped. I spun away from the peephole, expecting to see Mona standing behind me. But there was no one there.

Shit! I thought as I lurched back at the peephole, fearing the scene would have disappeared once again. When I reached it, I was no longer looking at the tennis shoes, I was looking at the face of a young girl. I know that g-…I gasped…that’s Cameron Darnell!

“Mary Beth is waiting on you behind the old train car.” She said, and my focus returned to balancing on the brick wall.

Jesus, I thought, those are my shoes. I felt sick, but I couldn’t tell if the sensation was real, or I was experiencing it from the moment I was visiting through the peephole. Because this wasn’t some vision or delusion.

This was a memory.

This was the day I should have had my first kiss.

It was sixth grade, and Cameron had told me to meet Mary Beth behind the train car, that she was waiting there to kiss me but I had refused. Even then I was a hopeless romantic, I didn’t want it to happen like that. I wanted it to happen like it did in the movies or on TV. Little did I know at the time that if it had happened this way, it would have been an adorable story. “Mary Beth Lemmons, behind the old train car at a little league baseball game,” I’d have said when groups of my adult friends were reminiscing of first kisses over glasses of wine with soft music played in the background, as groups of adult friends tend to do.

And here I was, twelve years old, once again refusing to kiss Mary Beth. How many times I’d thought about that moment in the last twenty years. How many times I’d felt stomach-turning regret over it. Over something so seemingly small and insignificant.

“Do it.” I heard my adult self say. My voice was muffled against the door, my hot breath ricocheted off the wood and back into my face. My eyes darted quickly to the right and back in a mock effort to see if Mona had heard, but I dared not move my head away. “Do it, go kiss her,” I demanded of this version of my younger self.

My vision turned to the old train car. It was red from rust and rested in a bed of weeds. It turned back to Cameron. I’d refused twice and she continued to rebut.

“Okay,” I heard a small voice say. My voice. “but keep a lookout, okay?”

I was doing it. This isn’t how it happened. Adult me was standing in my hallway watching through this peephole but the scene engulfed me as if I were once again young me. I could feel the sun warm on my skin, the weeds brushing against my ankles as I ran. I could feel the nerves and the fear and the excitement. I could smell Mary Beth’s perfume as I rounded the corner of the train car and hear her voice quiver as she asked me, “Yeah?” I could feel my hands tremble as I placed them on her waist, and then, unsure, pulled them away. I could feel her breath as we laughed, inches from each other. I could feel the coldness of her rings as they pressed into the back of my neck, pulling me against her. I could taste the warmth of her kiss and feel the shudder go down my spine. I was reliving the first moment I ever considered a regret. The first choice I ever considered a bad one.

I blinked and it was gone.

There was nothing but darkness.

I pulled away my eyes frantic, not ready to let the moment go. I searched the door. I reached for the handle and swung it open. I charged into a dark room, the ceiling fan turned slowly.

“Les?”

Mona.

I spun, trying to control my breath.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh. I, uh…” I searched the room like I’d find an answer in one of the dusty corners. “The ceiling fan.” I flipped off the switch. “We must have left it on.”

“C’mon,” she smiled, “it’s our favorite part.”

I followed her into the living room and we sunk down into the couch. She nuzzled into me and wrapped herself around my right arm. My gaze was fixed on the wall past the TV, the character’s words a distant droning.

What else could I relive through the peephole?

Turns out, they were all there.

Each time I went back to the peephole it was another crossroads, another decision, another regret. There were girls I wanted to ask out, things I wanted to say, things I wished I’d never said, (and girls I wished I’d never asked out). There were opportunities I hadn’t taken, places I wished I hadn’t gone, things I wished I’d never done. There were moments I hadn’t even remembered! So many regrets. And I was reliving them all, watching them unfurl in the opposite direction. I was making the decisions that I’d always wished I’d have made in the first place.

I stole away in short moments whenever I had the chance. Mona wasn’t heading back to work for a few days so my spare time was limited. While she was in the bathroom, I’d rush to the peephole. I began to stay home during our evening runs, feigning joint pain. I became frustrated and short during the time we spent together because I just wanted to get back to the peephole. I wanted to see how the next regret would turn out. It didn’t work for her, she couldn’t see, so she didn’t understand.

Before long, I couldn’t stand to be away. I stopped hiding what I was doing. If she didn’t understand, if she didn’t accept that I needed this, then maybe she didn’t love me like I thought she did.

She ate dinner by herself, because I stopped eating.

She went to bed by herself, because I stopped sleeping.

She went to church by herself, because I stopped praying.

The day she left wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. She obviously didn’t want me to be happy. I was fixing everything that had gone wrong in my life. Oh, the elation that accompanied such a thing! I wouldn’t stand by and let her take that away from me. So what if I wasn’t working? This was so much more important. And soon, I’d run out of regrets, and then…and then I could start my practice and bring patients here! It would work for them and they could go back and fix everything that went wrong in their lives and they would feel wonderful! Yes! Yes, that’s what I would do.

I awoke one morning on the floor of the hallway. Exhaustion must have crept up on me again. I sat up wearily. I was shaky. I needed food. The house was dark. None of the switches worked. I glanced, unconcerned, at the rotting food on the kitchen counter. Pizza, how many days old? I pulled the refrigerator door open and glanced at the few items that remained. A jar of pickles sat next to some half-empty condiments. Those would have to work.

I pulled a pickle from the jar and walked back towards the hallway. What regret would I get to relive today? What crossroad would I get to pull up to, glance in the direction I’d once gone, and this time go the opposite way? I wiped pickle juice from my fingers on the stained white undershirt I was wearing. I brushed the hair out of my eyes, and without hesitation I placed my face against the door, my unkempt beard bristling against the wood.

The light rushed over me once again and in it, dead leaves skittered across dying grass and into the driveway as I surveyed a poorly maintained lawn.

It was moving day.