At thirty-five years of age, moving back into my family home, (with a parent still in residence mind you) wasn't the greatest thing to happen in my life. However, a messy divorce and the abrupt termination of a lease on my apartment saw me back in my childhood bedroom, a full fifteen years after I left. It wasn't all bad I hasten to add. Mom was glad of the company and it enabled me to secure funds, ultimately to regain my independence.
For two months it felt we weren't so much mother and son, more like flat mates. She had her life, work, friends. And I had mine. Namely work, with many of my marriage's mutual friends siding with my wife. And so, we existed. Under the same roof, shared expenses, shared food and after a chance discovery, a shared bed. I can tell you the exact day and time my feelings for my mother turned from love to lust. If you're curious, it was a Saturday and it was 10:35am. But I'm sure you're more interested in the 'how?'
I was absently scrolling through channels on the television mid Sunday morning when Mom huffed in my general direction as she passed by holding laundry. "What?" I laughed.
"You know what," she sniggered and I acquiesced by switching off the TV.
"I'm bored," I defended my inaction and she again scoffed.
"Well, if you're looking for something to do, clean out all your old junk from the garage. But in the meantime, come help me make the bed."
Neither were the most interesting of endeavors, but short of something else to focus on, followed her progress toward the bedroom.
Strangely, the realization I'd not entered her domain since my return to the house had an impact on me. No reason as to why it should, but helping her with the 'hospital corners,' I felt like getting it over with as soon as possible. Extra cushions perfectly aligned and a throw rug strategically positioned, we soon had it looking like a Good Housekeeping cover and I made to leave before I noticed her closet door.
"What's with this?" I touched the misaligned sliding mirrored door, clearly off its track.
"Oh, that bloody thing," she waved her hand dismissively. "It always falls of the rail."
I gave it a wobble and a tug and on closer inspection could see the problem, a spanner needed to solve the issue.
"Your father had to fix it every few months," she added.
"And how long's it been like this then?" I asked, the ability to close the door completely removed and I waited for Mom to reply, finally turning when she didn't.
She was watching me, the dirty sheets wrapped in her arms. "Since he..." She paused and I knew as to why she'd struggled in responding. Dad's illness, diagnosis, and eventual passing had been swift and in the two years since, the broken door was stark evidence I'd not been around enough to support her. I now was man of the house and starting right then, I determined to right at least one wrong.
"Well," I chuckled to return some levity to the morning. "I was looking for something to do!"
Mom looked past me toward the closet and the partly open door.
"Oh, you don't have too," she moved to my side of the bed, standing between me and the closet in a not-so-subtle attempt to obscure, 'something.'
"It's no problem," I headed out of the room, lightly touching her arm as I left in an attempt at consoling. Allowing her to take care of whatever was in the closet she was uncomfortable with me viewing.
When I returned with the suitable tools, she was gone. A dressing gown thrown over the large cardboard box I'd spied on the floor inside the closet, hinted at what she'd been nervous about. But why? There are those moments where you know what you're about to do could have drastic effects and you contemplate whether to do them. This was my moment. Before I began work on the door, I took a step back to be sure she wasn't coming down the hallway then reached in and lifted the gown.
The box was closed with a simple fold and with an admittedly shaking hand, (memories of sneaking peeks at Christmas presents coming to mind) I lifted one of the flaps. I was actually kind of disappointed when I saw VHS cassette covers. Dad had been a collector of films and my initial thought was this was his excess storage space. A cursory inspection of a label had me doubting this however. A date. Nothing more. More than ten years previous. The others proved similar, no description as to what they contained, only dates. The size of the box had me calculating how many tapes were held inside without removing any more, and I came up with more than fifty. What was on them? Tv shows? Sporting events Dad had wanted to preserve?
I placed the gown back over the box, cursing myself for not taking note of how it was covered in the first place and went to work on the door. Just in time too, with Mom entering to see how I was progressing.
"Thank you for this," she said as she sat upon the bed to watch. To watch? I wondered. Or to make sure I didn't look inside the closet? I put it out of my mind as I effectively reattached the sliding mechanism and had the door back in working order, demonstrating to her the ease of opening and closing. "Thank you Honey," she repeated and I was rewarded with a kiss. Not completely a foreign sign of affection from her, but in the circumstances, unexpected.
*
I let it slip from my mind. It wasn't until at least three days later that I even thought of the box. Its contents. It entered my head when cleaning out the garage of my old ephemera. Books to donate to charity, toys and games from my childhood that had no real value but the sentimental. There were DVDs that I put aside to watch again, before at the bottom of a box I found old dubbed VHS wrestling tapes.
I dumped them straight into the rubbish before the lightbulb went on in my head. What WAS on those tapes, I wondered? I no longer owned a VCR. I was pretty sure Mom didn't either. Now that I thought of it, nor had any of my friends. What was the likelihood of finding a working one on Craigslist, I wondered? And for what reason? Some probably irrelevant TV shows from the past stored in my Mom's wardrobe? It was only when opening a box of old electrical cables and power boards, did I discover the answer to my dilemma.
I'd never seen it before. It was old enough for Mom and Dad to have had it when I was still at home, and if they had, I'd definitely never seen it used. An old bulky video camera, most likely from the 90's, the deck revealing it to indeed be VHS. As if some premonition of what was to be, a strange feeling washed over me, my hands becoming slightly clammy, my stomach turning.
I turned it on and wasn't surprised it didn't function, the battery clearly being long dead. However, upon searching further in the box I found a charging pack and set about restoring power to the ageing machinery. Probably doesn't even work anymore. I told myself as I found a box of my old comics and set about losing myself in the adventures of the X-Men.
It was three hours later and on my third trip back from the kitchen with beer, that I noticed the red light on the charger had turned to green. Rescuing one of my wrestling tapes from the bin, I loaded it and the battery back into the camera, pressed play and brought the small viewfinder to my eye.