Louella Lester

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Opening Drawers


The chest of drawers had stood there in Aunty’s bedroom for as long as I could remember, just a plain oak chest. Well-made, but no fancy carvings. Seven drawers, skinny one at the top, each getting bigger as you went down to the last, the only one with a keyhole, always locked. The key on a cord, safe around Aunty’s neck.

When Mom and Dad were drunk-fighting, we’d scoot over to Aunty’s. Didn’t matter how late, she’d take us in. Once the younger kids fell asleep, she’d open a drawer, pull something out, and tell me a story.

A wood-carved whistle. Joey was my best friend until I was about ten, then his house burned down and his family moved away.

A faded blue t-shirt. Billy wanted to love girls so bad, but he just couldn’t, not in that way. So he loved me as best as he could, until he was old enough to run away to the city.

A sheaf of thick paper covered in watercolour paintings. Robins. Hummingbirds. Owls. Mitch and I were a good match, loved reading and painting. But I knew I was just second best, your mom was who he really loved. I’ve always wondered… poor Mitch got sick one winter and wasted away.

Over the years I heard all the stories of her past loves, more than once, but never the ones locked in the bottom drawer. I knew it held the memories of her husband, the one who built the chest, but the one who Mom said beat Aunty because she couldn’t make babies. After a few years, he disappeared, never came back, and no one went searching. I used to worry about what was locked in that drawer.

When Aunty died, she left clear instructions that I was to place the memories from the first six drawers into her casket. Then I was to build a bonfire and burn the whole chest without opening that bottom drawer, something she must’ve known I, being curious by nature, would have a hard time doing. Maybe she was trying to teach me something.

I saw to her wishes, all but one. Before I toppled the chest onto the fire, I unlocked that bottom drawer with the key I’d retrieved from around her neck right after she passed. I slid the drawer open and there was nothing in it. Nothing at all.

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Banner Art:
from The Ant Hill, Pierre Alechinsky, 1954