Chapter 72: Cleaning and Memories
Chapter 72
Saturdays—especially every last Saturday of the quarter—was always for cleaning the entire apartment.
Katherine dragged the vacuum to the side and exhaled, her muscles already protesting from cleaning. She had spent the whole morning rearranging the apartment, changing curtains to new ones, flipping the pillows, dusting everything while arranging the bed and couch positions. It was a ritual she had adopted and had been rimmed in her bones for years.
As Katherine pulled out the last storage box from the closet, she used a napkin to wipe the dust covering the box as she sneezed from the dust. She carried the box out with a grunt then placed it on the floor.
She opened the box to see some album pictures of the twins, used baby shawls and unisex sets, the abandoned parenting textbooks she bought during her pregnancy, the toys the twins used as a nostalgic smile curled on her lips.
As she opened the album, an old picture fell and Katherine picked it up and froze. Her hand stopped mid-air as she looked at the picture.
Katherine sat on the floor, legs folded as she stared at it, melancholy. Her fingers hovered over Aaron’s face, his smile was carefree with the boyish charm, he was in his team jersey. Grandma Sally’s hand rested on his shoulder as Eleanor’s eyes were on Aaron and Katherine stood shyly beside Aaron.
They all looked happy, carefree, and young.
As the image spiraled into her memory, pulling her into the unblemished past that she didn’t want to visit.
College. She could never forget. Her second year in college was the worst year for her that she nearly gave up—or rather she gave up—if not for the little thread pushing her through.
The new semester of second year rolled in and it was supposed to be a fresh start for her and Aaron, yet everything shattered quicker than she imagined.