There is a Season.
God, I hate this.
I unzipped my suitcase and let the cover hang onto the bed. It smelled stuffy like old, dusty air and a bit like cigarettes. I bought this suitcase set—seven pieces for the low price of $79.95—when I went to Toronto. My first passport stamp. A rite of passage.
I threw things into the suitcase. There wasn’t much time. Just some clothes and whatever else I needed to get through this.
Twenty-six years old and dead. Died on the surgeon’s table for an appendectomy. Sons of bitches with scalpels and degrees and cotton masks covering their smug faces but not their beady greedy eyes.
I exhaled. It was cleansing.
How many outfits would I need for four days? Well, one outfit was already decided. I pulled the modest black dress covered in a black trash bag from the closet and folded it in half in the bottom of the suitcase.
I grabbed a few books, one of them a Bible, and laid them all across the bottom, making a hilly foundation for the rest of the stuff going in there. My Bible was worn. I’d been reading Ecclesiastes and singing The Birds in my head as I read.
To everything
Turn turn turn
There is a season
Turn turn turn
I grabbed some jeans and t-shirts, critiquing their quality as I haphazardly folded them and tossed them inside. I grabbed underwear and socks. I grabbed perfume and deodorant. I threw in dress shoes and sneakers, one at a time. I would be wearing my flip flops on the plane.
A time to be born
A time to die
Why couldn’t I be packing for a better trip? Like going to the beach. Well, I live forty minutes from the beach. All I would pack would be some cash and sun block. Forty-five SPF. Water Babies. The serious sun block that pale blue-eyed girls like me cake on to avoid our porcelain skin to turn fire engine red because we can’t tan. I’d probably bring a book. Something small that I can put down at a moment’s notice. Something easy. Something lacking commitment. Maybe Eragon or Northanger Abbey. Something small. Something easy.
A time to sow
A time to reap
What about a trip to Europe? I would need a week to pack for a trip to Europe. Or just a backpack, rough it with as little as possible like you hear from other people. It’s the stuff of legend. Can it really happen? It would be hard for someone like me, who packs a variety of things to prepare for my wavering moods. Maybe Ender’s Game, Wuthering Heights, and Deathly Hallows—suiting all types of tastes and moods. And a notebook, so I can pretend I’m Orson Scott Card or Emily Bronte or J.K. Rowling and write a saga of my own.
A time to kill
A time to heal
Wait. Did I pack any books? Oh, of course I did. There was The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe next to The Once and Future King. She would describe Peter Pevensie as an admiring fan, making him tangible. I would read it to her, and she would swoon, “Oh, Peter!” in her best British accent. We should have been studying for exams, but what college sophomore actually studies? I took her to the movie for her birthday. She and I cried into our popcorn when the White Witch ran the dagger through Aslan. She always got extra butter and emptied a bag of M&Ms into the bucket and never gained a pound.
Liam Neeson has a beautiful voice. He should read books on tape.
I grabbed my hairbrush, mousse, and blow dryer. I couldn’t possibly leave without these.
I looked at her picture on my dresser. It was wedged between my mirror and its wooden frame among others from my life. Twenty-six and dead. She was happy in this photo, standing in front of our college dorm freshman year. That was so long ago. That was yesterday.
A time to laugh
A time to weep
I was her maid of honor. I helped her husband figure out a way to propose. I helped her pack her life in boxes to move to Cincinnati with her new husband and new life. I told her she would hate the cold and not to call me at Christmas to complain about the ice on her windows while I wore shorts and flip flops to deal with Florida’s constant summer in winter. (Florida always confuses the seasons, so it sticks with what it knows: blistering heat. There are a few days out of the year that I have to break out my college sweatshirt.)
College sweatshirt. Cincinnati is going to be cold. I grabbed that from the depths of my closet and threw it over everything else in my suitcase. It smelled like the suitcase. Would I have enough perfume? Never mind. She’ll let me use her washer and dryer.
Turn, turn, turn.
Oh, yeah.
