Personal Effects by E. M. Kokie

does, that I’ve acted whipped enough not to tip him off. If I’ve blown it, I have no idea what I’ll do. I can’t wait. Not for long.
    Dad’ll be around Monday — Memorial Day. No way we’re “celebrating,” but no way he can work, either. No sites to inspect on a national holiday. We’ll both be here, pretending nothing’s happening. Be like him to get rid of it all tomorrow, if he’s leaning that way. And even if he doesn’t, after tonight I’ll only have after school, when I’m not working, unless I cut. And if I cut, I’m screwed. Has to be tonight.
    I can’t stop thinking about what could be in the footlockers — the sweatshirt with the ripped front pocket T.J. wore everywhere. The pictures he took when he was over there, maybe even a couple pics of him. His camera. His CDs and iPods. Please, let his iPods be in there.
    I kick off my muddy shoes on the porch and wipe off the worst of the crud before going inside. Dad’s standing at the counter, drinking a glass of water.
    His white shirt is starched crisp, the pocket sealed to the shirt and the cuffs sharp, and he smells like a sweet cedar closet from a healthy dousing of his favorite cologne. Those aren’t poker night or hanging-around-with-Uncle-Mac clothes. Either Dad has an actual date or he’s hoping to find one later.
    He flashes a grin on his way to the door. Damn near whistling. He might as well have said, “See you tomorrow.”
    If he does come home tonight, no idea how late he’ll be, but I’d bet he’ll be gone at least a few hours. And he never brings anyone here, at least not until he’s been seeing them for a while. Really no way of knowing if he’s got all-night plans or just hopes to have an all-night plan soon.
    And he might already have plans to get rid of the footlockers.
    What if I wake up tomorrow and he’s hauling them out the door?
    Or come home sometime next week and they’re gone?
    Like the bag. Like the flag. Like the pictures.
    If I don’t do it now, tonight, I might never get the chance.
    I wait just long enough to be sure Dad’s date isn’t gonna crap out, text Shauna to blow off our plans, and then start for the upstairs.
    Standing at the bottom of the steps, it’s like a rush.
    Every step is a separate defiance.
    Four long strides from the landing to the spot right in front of the door to T.J.’s room.
    I spent eight years living in the room behind me, more than two of them staring at this closed door and wanting to be inside. Wondering whether T.J. would let me in if I knocked. Wondering if I could get in and get whatever, look at whatever, before T.J. came home, the fear of being caught clogging my throat. How many times did I sit here in the hallway, reading a comic book or playing a game, waiting for him? Most of those times he stepped over me, walked into that room, and shut the door behind him, without a word.
    It takes me three tries to make myself actually touch the doorknob. But once I turn the cold metal, the door swings wide like someone pulled it open from the inside. I stare into the room. T.J.’s old bed. His desk. His dresser.
    It looks pretty much the way it did when T.J. left for Basic, only dustier. Same plaid bedspread and nearly flat pillow barely making a lump. Same faded posters and stuff on the walls: Dave Matthews Band between the closet and the door; some pages cut from magazines, mainly
Rolling Stone
; the huge-ass Bruce Springsteen rocking out over his desk, the
Born in the U.S.A.
album cover blown up and stretched across the far wall, and the
Human Touch
album poster on the wall next to his bed; and smaller pics and ticket stubs and notes and stuff on the corkboard. I can practically hear T.J.’s music radiating from the walls.
    Stacks of CDs overflow the rack next to the desk. In the far corner, a few boxes T.J. left before his first tour in Iraq and never bothered to take with him later.
    Crossing into the room feels wrong, and not just because I haven’t been in here in a