Objects of My Affection by Jill Smolinski

friends and family havedied off or moved away. You want to at least have a reminder of them. You’re young—you’ll understand someday. Personally, I can’t believe how you were able to sell all your things. I still think you should have put more in storage.”
    â€œStorage costs money. Besides, I don’t miss any of it.”
    â€œHow can you possibly say that?”
    â€œBecause it’s true.”
    â€œBut your pretty dishes! And that antique armoire you had in your bedroom—oh, you were so excited about refinishing it. Remember how you sent me all those pictures of it on the e-mail? It had to have broken your heart to let it go.”
    An image of my old bedroom floats to my mind. I’d spent weeks picking just the right lavender color for the walls, one that set off the whitewash I’d lovingly given the armoire. But before I can think too long about how I handed over my cotton, eyelet bedspread in exchange for a $5 bill at my garage sale, I sweep the thought away. I did what I needed to do. “It’s no big deal,” I say.
    â€œI don’t mean to bring up a sad subject.”
    â€œIt’s not. I’m fine.” As long as I don’t think about it, I’m fine.
    Truth be told, in some ways, I’m actually glad to have it all gone. It couldn’t get gone fast enough, in fact. I recall how the taxi carrying Ash and his interventionist had barely pulled away and I was already in Ash’s room, eager to sweep through and throw away anything stashed there that was possibly drug-related. Going through every drawer, closet, and crevice, I chucked the obvious: pills and powders, baggies, pill containers, pill cutters—but then weird stuff, too, that had no place in a boy’s bedroom, such as pen casings emptied of their insides and plastic two-liter pop bottles filled with murky water. A euphoria came with watching the trash bag fill up that had me buzzier and more energized than I’d been in months.
    A week later at my garage sale I was still on a high—and against a deadline to move out before escrow closed. Heather, who was there helping, had to talk me out of selling some things. Just because Ash had duct-taped a hash pipe out of some of his LEGOs, she’d said—takinga LEGO pirate ship set off the FOR SALE table and hiding it away from customers—didn’t mean they all were bad. Ash had a right to his belongings.
    And it wasn’t only his stuff I was tossing. I also sold the dining room set that reminded me how we didn’t eat dinners together anymore … the stereo that played far too many sad songs … the couch that my ex-boyfriend Daniel and I picked out back when we were together for the three of us to pile on to watch movies. Even things seemingly benign—a fondue pot, a corkboard—shouted at me their need to belong to someone who could give them a proper home, after I’d proved that I couldn’t.
    I turn my attention back to my mom, who has moved on to giving me the weather report for Sun City—hot and sunny! The poppies are already coming in! What I didn’t realize was that it isn’t conversation but, rather, a sales pitch.
    â€œSo if that job doesn’t work out, you always have a place here with your father and me,” she says, causing me to choke on the Cheez-It I just popped into my mouth. “We’ve got that spare room. I don’t understand why you didn’t come here in the first place instead of being squeezed in at Heather’s. It doesn’t seem there’s anything holding you to Chicago. You don’t have a regular job. Ash is in Florida. I don’t see a boyfriend in the picture … unless there’s something you’re not telling me. Wait, is there a new beau?”
    â€œNo. There isn’t anyone.” It’s embarrassing that I’m still nursing my wounds over Daniel’s breaking up with me, though it’s been