Contingency Plan or Just in Case
When we first moved into our apartment, I found myself repeatedly saying, “Oh, you know, just in case,” to my girlfriend.
This isn’t a story of how we all become our fathers, because my dad never had to say those words. My sisters and I knew better than to ask questions demanding that response. We knew to think our questions through. We wouldn’t make someone else tell us their fears when our questions were the answers themselves. We wouldn’t point fears out and ask, Why?
I’m not my father though, so when Haileigh asks “Why do you want to keep all these cardboard moving boxes--it’s not like we’re gonna move for a while,” or “Do we really need to keep all the takeout containers, the Pyrex are just fine,” or, “Can we give away those old games you haven’t touched in years?” I say, “We can use them to store our winter blankets or pillows in the summer,” or, “We might host a party and want people to take home leftovers,” or, “But I like having them here, just in case.”
Haileigh used all her vacation days for the year, so I took time off to move. And she didn’t need time to pack because, she said, “Everything I really need and care about fits in a suitcase.” She donated most of her clothes. She had her one box of jewelry, clearly marked, so I could make sure of its location at all times.
But my valuables don’t fit in a box like that. They’re the piles of receipts that I’ve kept over the years, that remind me of what I’ve been able to experience, what I’ve been able to buy. They’re the limited edition bags from the Hello Kitty store, once gone, gone forever, that are unbearably cute. They’re the brochures I kept from our vacations to Vancouver, Dublin, and Berlin.
My parents didn’t have the luxury of things when they came with one suitcase. Everything from their 20s fits in one photo album. It could’ve been two. But when we moved into our first long-term apartment, the movers misplaced my dad’s photo album. Decades of life gone.
It wasn’t a banker’s box, with reinforced cardboard. This box had followed him from China to Boston. Corrugated and awkwardly-shaped, it sat in his lap for twenty-four hours - including the three-hour layover at LAX--because it didn’t fit in the overhead compartment or under the seat. It was perfect for storing hundreds of flat photos. For years, it lay under his childhood bed.
We scoured the new, and old, apartment for that cardboard box. “It’s the size of a slightly longer pizza box.” was what Dad told me when I was enlisted to look for it at six years old. I was the best at finding nooks and crannies to store and hide myself. We never found the box. I thought he would yell at us on the ride to the new apartment, mission failed, but he stayed silent the entire drive, breaking it only with rapping his knuckles against the wheel.
We never mentioned it again. When Dad did, he’d mutter something about a life exchanged for a new life.
Haileigh’s not great at tactfully failing to mention something. When we buy our first couch, I wince when she takes scissors to cut the tag and cleaning instructions off the leg. “Why should we act like we can’t afford it?” she asked. “Obviously we can, so our living room shouldn’t look like a showroom.” When we upgrade to a flat-screen TV, I ask her not to take the plastic wrapping off. Months later, I finally notice the plastic is gone. “Exactly,” she said. “You didn’t notice, and nothing changed when I took it off.” When Haileigh finds my stash of cash, she asks why I haven’t put it in the bank yet. She’s a financial advisor, so I get that she’s confused about why I wouldn’t rather take the gains in the interest rates. But it’s my lai see money, and I like to keep those around. Also, for emergencies.
It’s not the biggest surprise to my parents when we break up the month before our lease is due. I was the only one who could afford the place alone, so she and her suitcase left. She’d accumulated some more things, though, so I let her take my cardboard boxes.
This isn’t a story of how we all become our fathers, because my dad never had to say those words. My sisters and I knew better than to ask questions demanding that response. We knew to think our questions through. We wouldn’t make someone else tell us their fears when our questions were the answers themselves. We wouldn’t point fears out and ask, Why?
I’m not my father though, so when Haileigh asks “Why do you want to keep all these cardboard moving boxes--it’s not like we’re gonna move for a while,” or “Do we really need to keep all the takeout containers, the Pyrex are just fine,” or, “Can we give away those old games you haven’t touched in years?” I say, “We can use them to store our winter blankets or pillows in the summer,” or, “We might host a party and want people to take home leftovers,” or, “But I like having them here, just in case.”
Haileigh used all her vacation days for the year, so I took time off to move. And she didn’t need time to pack because, she said, “Everything I really need and care about fits in a suitcase.” She donated most of her clothes. She had her one box of jewelry, clearly marked, so I could make sure of its location at all times.
But my valuables don’t fit in a box like that. They’re the piles of receipts that I’ve kept over the years, that remind me of what I’ve been able to experience, what I’ve been able to buy. They’re the limited edition bags from the Hello Kitty store, once gone, gone forever, that are unbearably cute. They’re the brochures I kept from our vacations to Vancouver, Dublin, and Berlin.
My parents didn’t have the luxury of things when they came with one suitcase. Everything from their 20s fits in one photo album. It could’ve been two. But when we moved into our first long-term apartment, the movers misplaced my dad’s photo album. Decades of life gone.
It wasn’t a banker’s box, with reinforced cardboard. This box had followed him from China to Boston. Corrugated and awkwardly-shaped, it sat in his lap for twenty-four hours - including the three-hour layover at LAX--because it didn’t fit in the overhead compartment or under the seat. It was perfect for storing hundreds of flat photos. For years, it lay under his childhood bed.
We scoured the new, and old, apartment for that cardboard box. “It’s the size of a slightly longer pizza box.” was what Dad told me when I was enlisted to look for it at six years old. I was the best at finding nooks and crannies to store and hide myself. We never found the box. I thought he would yell at us on the ride to the new apartment, mission failed, but he stayed silent the entire drive, breaking it only with rapping his knuckles against the wheel.
We never mentioned it again. When Dad did, he’d mutter something about a life exchanged for a new life.
Haileigh’s not great at tactfully failing to mention something. When we buy our first couch, I wince when she takes scissors to cut the tag and cleaning instructions off the leg. “Why should we act like we can’t afford it?” she asked. “Obviously we can, so our living room shouldn’t look like a showroom.” When we upgrade to a flat-screen TV, I ask her not to take the plastic wrapping off. Months later, I finally notice the plastic is gone. “Exactly,” she said. “You didn’t notice, and nothing changed when I took it off.” When Haileigh finds my stash of cash, she asks why I haven’t put it in the bank yet. She’s a financial advisor, so I get that she’s confused about why I wouldn’t rather take the gains in the interest rates. But it’s my lai see money, and I like to keep those around. Also, for emergencies.
It’s not the biggest surprise to my parents when we break up the month before our lease is due. I was the only one who could afford the place alone, so she and her suitcase left. She’d accumulated some more things, though, so I let her take my cardboard boxes.
Celene Chen (she/hers) is a lesbian and 2nd-generation Hong Konger. Her poetry has been published in The Lickety Split. She draws and makes zines, which you can find on Etsy under Underwater Ventriloquist. Chen is also a law student at the Boston University School of Law, graduating May 2022. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram.
Art: Yuno Shiota,『暮れなずむ』Kurenazumu At Dusk, 22.7 cm ×15.8 cm, acrylic on canvas, 5.23.2020