Charmed Particles by Chrissy Kolaya Page B

the soft carpet in the master bedroom, his trunk laid open in front of the closet. He had returned from his most recent trip just that morning and now smiled up at Rose, who watched from the hallway as Lily dug happily through the open trunk on the floor between them, pulling out treasure after treasure, certain that with each one would come a new story from her father. This was their ritual each time Randolph returned home. Rose joined them only to pluck Randolph’s more malodorous articles of clothing from the trunk and transfer them to a laundry basket destined for her immediate and thorough attentions.
    Each time he returned from an expedition, Rose labeled his travel journal with the dates and destinations of his trip, adding it to the long row of journals that lined the mahogany bookshelves in his study. There, among his record of daily activities could be found sketches of native art, notes on travel routes and supplies, lists of objects acquired and of animals observed, handwritten receipts, well-worn maps gone soft at the folds and threatening to tear, official-looking permits bearing indecipherable stamps, foreign banknotes, customs forms issued by stern and harried clerks, now folded into small squares—all of these tucked, like bookmarks, into his journals. The mementos she catalogued and arranged in the display cases in his study, tucking a tribal mask in next to a clay sculpture or a tiny hand-woven basket, closing the case carefully and stepping back to admire each new addition.
    In a small tin box on the bookshelf, Rose saved all of their letters. Sorting through his trunk after Lily had unearthed all of the treasures with which he’d returned, what delighted Rose most was to come upon the letters she had sent him, bound and bundled together, and which he had carried with him throughout his travels. These she added to the collection each time he returned, so that the tin box contained within it both the original correspondence and the response, a record of their extraordinary marriage, of what Rose thought of, always, as their great love story.

    When it was again time for Randolph to pack, it was Randolph and Lily’s ritual to do that together also, Lily sometimes slipping in a drawing, a note, or some small treasure. These, Randolph discovered well into his trip, smiling to think of Lily doing this on the sly as he tucked his belongings into the trunk.
    Lily prided herself on maintaining a stiff upper lip when it was time for her father to depart. She had never cried, not once. She felt it would have been disloyal. Her mother had taught her to be proud of their unconventional life—that there were many different ways to be a family, and that though it was different from what most people chose, this was the way of being a family that worked best for them. This was what she reminded herself firmly, emphatically, on the days when her father left.
    In kindergarten, Lily came home from school one day distressed to have learned from a classmate that parents who didn’t live together no longer loved each other. Rose had gently corrected her. Certainly sometimes parents stopped loving one another, she explained, but that would never be the case with Lily’s mother and father, who loved each other so strongly that even Lily had to admit to never having seen her parents argue.
    â€œOur family is different, yes,” Rose said, taking her daughter’s small hands in hers, “but that is something we should be proud of. It makes us unique.”

    Rose had read all of the great political biographies—Churchill, Kennedy, Truman, Roosevelt. As a girl growing up in a small farm town in the shadow of the great city of the Midwest, she had cried with her classmates over Kennedy’s death, but unlike her girlfriends, she was crying not because their handsome young president was dead, leaving behind a widow and small children who, even in mourning, looked like they had just stepped