A Mother's Inheritance

The box arrived on a Tuesday. It sat on the kitchen table, wrapped in brown paper that revealed nothing. My husband sipped coffee from his mug, the steam parting around his face in tendrils.

“That was on the porch. Is it for the baby?” he said. Not glancing up from his crossword puzzle.

“Oh.” It was the only thing I could think to say. I had begun to believe that maybe the box wasn’t real. That I had imagined the cryptic conversation with my mother, warning me of its impending arrival. “It’s yours to carry now," was all she said. A faint smile played on her lips. As we folded tiny onesies and matched impossibly small socks, I tried to pry more information out of her. She only shook her head, unwilling to give up her secrets.

I reached out my hand cautiously, as though the package were a wild animal I didn’t want to startle. The brown paper crinkled beneath my fingertips as I grazed it, ordinary and harmless. If my husband noticed my strange behavior, he didn’t comment on it. I carried the box to my sewing room, the one place in the house that was mine alone. My trusty Singer sat on a card table with thread and fabric scraps strewn about. I pushed it all aside and placed the box down. There was nothing written on the neatly folded paper. Maybe Mother left a clue or a message inside; she did love making puzzles.

The paper tore easily, revealing an ordinary looking wooden box. When my hand touched the surface, a jolt went through my body. I jerked back as though I had been burned, even though the varnished wood was cool to the touch. A part of me was deeply curious about what might be inside, but another, a stronger part, was frightened it would change me if I saw what it held. I didn’t know the change had already started.

Using the paper as a barrier, I carried the box to the corner of the room and buried it under yards of fabric patterned with teddy bears and flowers. The whisper of the pulsing sensation still ran through me. I shook my arm, but the feeling persisted. I thought of calling my mother, but I knew she wanted me to solve this on my own.

​

With the arrival of our baby, the mystery of the box was set aside. My body had transformed into something new; it was more than just wider hips that my old jeans wouldn’t fit over, and the sparse gray hairs poking through the crown of my head. It was like I had grown a new limb, a vital part of myself that I couldn’t live without.

As my daughter grew, we marked her height on the kitchen doorframe, carving a notch into the cheerful yellow paint each year. In my sleep, the pulse thrummed in the far-off reaches of my dreams, as familiar as my own heartbeat. Now and then, my husband would bring up the box. Our daughter would look up from her coloring page and ask what Daddy was talking about. I would brush the question off with a hand wave, a mystery I still didn’t understand, but wanted to keep for my own. After a while, the box was all but forgotten by them.

When I marked the ninth notch on the doorframe, I wondered if my mother had ever opened the box and what she had found inside. I wondered if she had been different before the box came into her life, as I had been. How many other women had held the box in their hands before me, felt the pulsing inside, felt it settle into their limbs and take root?

​

When I started to mark my own height to see if it was receding, my daughter was bringing a daughter of her own into the world. A beautiful baby with dark eyes and cheeks flushed with life. She wailed in my arms. As I breathed in the scent of her hair, a unique blend of baby powder and youth, I thought again of the box. It was finally time.

I dug through the years of fabric piled on top of it, leftovers from dance recital outfits, Halloween costumes, and flannel nightgowns. The faint vibration shimmered beneath, if only in my imagination. The box looked the same as the day I had unwrapped it. But now I welcomed the feeling as I held it in my hands.

The lid came open with ease, as though it had been expecting my arrival and loosened its hinges. The inside was lined with a rich blue velvet that felt like liquid on my fingers. There was nothing inside, but somehow everything at the same time. Though the box and its contexts were not quite mine anymore or not mine alone.

I closed the box softly and laughed. A deep laugh from the pit of my stomach until there were tears in my eyes. My husband called from somewhere in the house, probably his office.

“Everything okay in there?”

“Yes, I just realized something.”

He said nothing, but I could picture his face with that befuddled expression. He had forgotten about the box years ago, and I didn’t think I could explain exactly what had happened to him.

I went digging in the basement until I found a fresh roll of brown kraft paper in the gift wrap tub. Once again, I cleared a space on the card table, pushing my sewing machine aside and carefully wrapped the box, pressing each seam and corner as I folded.

I texted my daughter, that was how she preferred to communicate, and told her the words my mom had told me. “It’s yours to carry now.” I placed the box gently on her porch between the pots of petunias, overflowing with pink petals and new shoots of life. The pulse inside me remained as I knew it always would.