Aunt thanks nephew for helping… “I think that’s everything, Auntie T,” I said, putting the last in a series of heavy cardboard boxes down on my aunt’s living room floor. I had volunteered for the job of helping my Aunt Tina move her stuff into her new apartment, and we had been at it for about 7 hours now. I was pretty sweaty, and pretty happy to be done.
“Almost Markie dear, now we just need to start bringing in my piano collection.” She was always a hoot, my Auntie Tina. She gave me a little smile and tousled my hair. “Thank you for helping me out with this. I’ll make sure your mom knows what a good job you did.”
Auntie Tina was my mother’s younger sister, and we had always had a great relationship. After my dad had died last year, she decided to move back from her small house in suburbs to this just-about-as-small apartment in the country, just to be closer to my mom in her time of need. My mom insisted she didn’t have to, but that was my Auntie Tina. She always knew better.
“Thanks, Auntie,” I said with a smile. “Maybe she’ll let me stay up past 10PM now.” This was a joke, obviously as I was 20 now and had pretty much free reign… although I was still living in my mom’s house. Maybe a little part of me was worried to leave my mom alone as well. She was always very stoic about everything on the outside, but I kind of felt like she didn’t want me to see her struggle. I just didn’t feel like it was the right time to move out yet. Or maybe I wasn’t ready either.
Auntie T closed the door behind me and looked around. “So, this is my new home,” she said. “Not so bad… once I get all these boxes out of the way. It might even be a little bigger than my old house, plus I don’t have to mow the lawn anymore!”
“That’s the spirit, Auntie T,” I said. “I’m glad you’re close by now. I think Mom could use a little extra support. Plus, now I have somewhere to hang out when I need to get out of the house,” I said, giving her a nudge with my elbow. I knew I would be over there a lot, too. Auntie Tina had always been my sympathetic ear over the years when I needed to talk about stuff that … well, my parents wouldn’t have been ready for. Every so often, she would call the house and we’d end up talking for hours.
“Of course Mark honey, you’re welcome any time,” she said with a big smile. “Why don’t you come in and sit down, and rest for a few before you go? See if you can get the TV working too, so we can watch a show or something. I’ll start to unload some of this stuff.” With that, she disappeared into the kitchen with a big brown box.
I got to work on setting up the TV. Fortunately we had done a pretty good job labeling all the wires and it didn’t take long at all. I had finally gotten the evening news going when my aunt came back from the kitchen, with two bottles of beer in her hand. She sat down on the couch and patted the seat next to her. “Come have a seat, sweetie!” she chirped. “Let’s see what channels you all get around here.” She grabbed the remote and started flipping through.
wpDiscuz