The Band-Aid Box

Today is my father's 84th birthday, and I'm honoring his memory by sharing a wonderful story from my childhood.

During summers in the mid-70s, my parents, younger brother Joe and I would embark on cross-country round trips (via recreational vehicle) between Indiana (where I was raised) and California (where I was born). There was so much fascination packed between these states: Yellowstone National Park, Boys Town in Nebraska, and Mt. Rushmore, a monument I obsessed over, monumentally, for many of my formative years. "How'd they do that, make those faces out of stone?" my tiny brain wondered.

Along the journey, we'd stay at KOA campgrounds or economy hotels. The large trademark burnt-orange 6 in Motel 6 more than once shone like a beacon for us as night descended, prompting my yawning pilot of a father to pull off and call it a night.

My mom and dad have a favorite story from these good ole days and have regaled us with it many a time over the years at family gatherings or visits with friends. It was the morning after one of our Motel 6 stays, and we were back on the road – much too far down the interstate to turn back in case one of us forgot something in the motel room.

As Dad drove and Mom relaxed in the passenger seat beside him, I suddenly let out a deep, bloodcurdling howl that whipped them around in unison. Through my Old Faithful-caliber tears, I could still see their wide-eyed, wrinkled-brow expressions. "Oh my god, Paul, what's wrong!?"

Between whimpers and gasps for air, I managed to screech "Mmmm ... mmmm... myyy Band-Aid box!!! Wahhhhhhh!!! Wahhhh!!!"

Yes, a Band-Aid box, the metal kind with a hinged lid that snapped shut, cast me into the greatest depths of despair. Only this was no ordinary box. It was the perfect-size storage space for the treasures I loved to collect: wheat pennies, seashells, shiny pebbles. There might have even been a buckeye pod or two in there, too, and, I'm certain, souvenirs from the several landmarks where we stopped, gawked, and posed for photos snapped on a Kodak Instamatic X-15.

Anyways, the Band-Aid box was like a security blanket to me: I clearly couldn't live without it and it wasn't within my clutches. It was somewhere in the motel room we'd left behind at least 50 miles or so.

But my parents – the deeply loving, hard-working, selfless, heavenly human beings that they are – decided the only "Band-Aid" that would heal the situation would be to return to the motel and rescue the missing treasure. They had no qualms about this, especially if it meant quelling my grief and restoring me to a happy, quieter state. Besides, Mt. Rushmore could wait. It wasn't going anywhere.

So Dad, bless his heart – BLESS HIS HEART! – turned the RV around and back to the motel we drove. Quite fortunately we were able to locate the box! It was lodged between the bed and nightstand, swallowed by a wad of nubby chenille bedspread. I quickly, gleefully opened the lid to find all my collectibles intact, not knowing that the seed for a memory I'd treasure for the rest of my life had just been planted.

###

Little Black No-No

Deirdre arrived exactly 45 minutes late to the memorial service. The clock on her mobile phone told her so as she entered the small pentagonal building, nervous, head slightly bent, a knockout in the black jersey wrap dress that clung to the contours of her body—in all the right places.

A coat could have tamed her “va-va-va-voom look,” one more suited to a night on the town than for a 90-degree summer afternoon at her lover’s father’s wake. A breezy heat intensified the perfume of a striking wisteria that cascaded down the walls and from an overhang under which Deirdre parked her Lexus. Bees by the hundreds feasted on the nectar of the vine’s divine show of panicled, pale lavender blooms. Their collective buzzing seemed to echo Deirdre’s urgency to get herself inside the building—now!

Her stiletto heels clop-clopped on the entryway’s parquet flooring, like a horse’s hooves on a cobblestone street, as she attempted to tiptoe quietly to a vacant tweed-covered seat in the back row. The clang of the double metal-framed doors upon entry made less noise than her shoes, even when she mistakenly pushed the handles a few times before realizing she needed to pull them. Ugh.

Funeral perfect, no?

Undistracted by Deirdre’s arrival, a man she didn’t recognize stood before a gathering of about 50 family and friends. He would be the last to come forth and publicly share his condolences. “I will miss our Sunday morning chats,” he lamented before stepping out from behind a walnut podium.

From the first row, Seth was the first to peer toward the door upon Deirdre’s arrival. His eyes briefly met hers, which were heavily mascaraed (“Another no-no,” he could already his mother saying). Sitting to her right, he glanced over at his mother, half expecting her to budge in response to the latecomer’s commotion if not to meet his own gaze. But it was as if grief sharpened her focus, compelled her to look in only one direction. Forward.

Her inaction reminded him of how he and his younger brother, Nathan, who sat to his mother’s right, used to marvel at her ability to monitor their every move when they were children. Without even having to look at them, she knew right well when her boys were being ornery. As a youngster, Nathan made a proclamation that would be revived at several family gatherings through the years. “She has eyes on the back AND the sides of her head!” Seth could sense Mom’s “super vision” had been kick-started the moment Deirdre set foot in the room.

Still gazing undetected at his mother, he noticed that the sunglasses she wore sat slightly crooked on her nose. The long, printed skirt she chose (his father’s favorite, by the way) slightly overwhelmed her tiny frame, but a matching blazer of crisp navy-blue linen balanced the proportion. In her left hand she clutched a handkerchief with tattered crochet trim and an embroidered daffodil bloom and bumble bee in one corner. Seth had given it to her as a Mother’s Day gift several years ago. Daffodils were her favorite. She loved that the bulbs multiplied and magically sent up new shoots every March along the stretch of path leading to the front door of their Craftsman home. As a toddler, Seth’s parents let him drop bulbs by the handful into the holes they’d first dug in the rich, loamy soil of their garden some 50 years ago.

To his mother, Deirdre was no daffodil. He could already hear the words he knew would be uttered later from the lips of the first love of his life—words that worked only to dim the thoughts of a future with this disrespectful bombshell. “She has some nerve dressing like that! It’s your father’s funeral for heaven’s sake!” Seth thought she may as well have called Deirdre a whore.

Before he could ponder his mother’s stinging words and merciless power over him any further, the din of the room suddenly changed, shaking him from his quasi nightmare of a daydream. Folks exchanged pleasantries, gave hugs, shook their heads, and bee-lined to a banquet table topped with an enormous punchbowl and several platters piled high with finger foods.

Deirdre approached him quietly from behind. “Seth, I’m so sorry that I’m late. I can explain…” He slowly spun around, his mind spent from sorrowful thoughts of his late father suddenly replaced with imaginings of him fucking her.

She had straightened her naturally wavy jet-black hair. It fell to her shoulders, slightly brushing her open neckline. Deirdre had a habit of flipping her hair to one side and simultaneously pursing her lips, which today were coated with a pale pink gloss that smelled like a cosmopolitan. (He loved it when she did that!) Other than a light scattering of freckles on her nose, her complexion was smooth and flawless. Her cheeks were kissed with blush, the kind that gives you “a bee-stung look!” according to the Allure magazine she’d left at his apartment one weekend.

And that dress! Damn, she’s hot, he thought. And damn me for being such a mama’s boy! He knew it was seriously bad timing for such a fashion statement, one he wanted to quickly (or slowly) ease her out of.

“It’s OK. I’m glad you’re here,” Seth told her.

“You two should go have something to eat,” said his mother, who suddenly appeared, executing her polite way of interrupting a conversation. She held a small plate with a single spring roll, a small cucumber sandwich, and a dollop of spinach dip. He knew she wouldn’t eat any of it. All the grief had diminished any trace of an appetite.

Deirdre hugged her, expressing sorrow for our family’s loss, and profusely apologized for her lapse in etiquette (for being late not for wearing an inappropriate dress).

Seth and Deirdre sauntered slowly toward the line for the food. Had they quickly turned around they would have spied his mother walking off in the opposite direction, quite visibly shaking her head, and sighing loudly in disbelief.