The Boxes in Janice's Garage

Janice's garage smelled of sawdust, old bicycle tyres and the washing powder she bought in a box large enough to require its own shelf.

Their furniture occupied most of the left side. The wardrobe stood against the wall with its doors tied shut. Leila's bed frame lay in pieces beneath a sheet. Toby's football shelf leaned against a lawnmower, still missing the screw he carried in his pocket.

It was strange to see the things without the rooms around them. The table looked smaller. The sofa looked tired. Objects she had thought of as fixed parts of the world turned out to be awkward shapes someone had to find space for.

Janice stood beside the garage door with a mug in one hand and a measuring tape in the other.

“Don't panic,” she told Mum. “I'm not throwing anything out.”

Mum's face had changed before Janice finished the sentence.

“What is it?”

“My brother needs to store some work equipment in here from the end of next month. We can keep some of yours, but not all of it. I wanted to say now, not three days before.”

Mum nodded too quickly.

“Of course. You've done more than enough already.”

“Caz.”

“No, really. I'll sort something.”

Janice put the mug down on a shelf.

“I know you will. And we'll help work it out. I'm giving you information, not an eviction notice for a wardrobe.”

The joke landed badly and well at the same time. Mum laughed once, then rubbed her forehead.

“Sorry. Everything sounds like a deadline at the moment.”

Leila stood just inside the garage with her art folder against her leg. She had wanted more clothes and a set of pencils. Now she was looking at the sofa and wondering which parts of their life were too large to keep.

Toby climbed carefully between boxes until Mum told him to stay where she could see him. He found the box marked TOBY — ROOM and lifted the lid.

“My boots.”

“That's why we're here,” Mum said. “Your match is next week.”

He pulled out one boot, then another, and checked the studs with his thumb.

Leila found her clothes box beneath a bag of curtains. She had packed in such a hurry that summer tops lay beside winter tights and a dress she had not worn in two years. At the bottom was the blue jumper Esme liked borrowing because it looked better on her than it did on Leila.

She folded it into the small bag she had brought.

Mum was discussing storage options with Janice. There might be room in another friend's shed for a few sealed boxes, though not anything that would suffer from damp. Paying for a unit would mean another bill. Selling some furniture might make the immediate problem smaller and the eventual move more expensive.

Leila listened without looking up. Every option seemed to borrow difficulty from a later date.

“Do we need the wardrobe?” she asked.

Mum turned.

“We'll need somewhere for clothes when we move.”

“Some places have cupboards.”

“Some don't.”

“We could get another one.”

“With what?”

The words came out sharper than Mum intended. Leila knew that and felt them anyway.

Janice moved a box so she could reach the lawnmower.

“We don't have to decide it all tonight,” she said.

Toby had found his football medals. They were cheap metal on ribbons, most of them awarded for taking part rather than winning. He put three around his neck and looked for the fourth.

“That one's broken,” Leila said.

“I know.”

“Why do you want it?”

“Because it's mine.”

She looked at the blue jumper in her hands.

There were questions she would not have asked if she had first applied them to herself.

Mum came to the clothes box and knelt beside her.

“What do you actually need this week?”

“Something to wear at Esme's. My other jeans. The black pencils.”

“Take them. Don't make the bag too small on purpose.”

Leila looked at her.

“You do that,” Mum said. “Decide you shouldn't need much, then get angry when you don't have it.”

“I don't.”

Mum raised one eyebrow.

Leila took the other pair of jeans.

At the back of the box she found a little notebook Dad had bought her during a visit to a museum. The cover showed a row of bright buildings reflected in water. Inside, on the first page, he had written For the places you haven't drawn yet.

She opened it to the few pages she had used. A train window. A badly proportioned horse. Dad asleep in a chair with one sock sliding down his foot.

Mum saw the cover and said nothing.

Leila put it in the bag.

When they had collected what they needed, Janice made tea in the kitchen. Her son had left a maths book open on the table and a single trainer beneath it. The room was untidy in a way that made Leila ache. Things were waiting to be put away in places that existed.

Janice asked Toby about the match. He explained the opposing team, the problem with their usual goalkeeper and why the referee at the last game had not understood an obvious foul. She listened as though these were proper subjects, not distractions from the family problem.

Mum sat with both hands around her mug.

“Thank you,” she said when Toby went to find the toilet.

“You've said.”

“I know.”

“You'd keep my boxes.”

Mum smiled faintly.

“You have a lot of boxes.”

“So do you, apparently.”

Leila looked through the kitchen window towards the garage. Their wardrobe was visible in the strip of light from the open door. She tried to imagine a new room built around it and found she could only produce versions of the old one.

On the drive back, Toby fell asleep with the football boots in his lap. Mum kept the radio low.

“Janice isn't angry,” Leila said.

“I know.”

“You sounded like you thought she was.”

Mum watched the road for a while before answering.

“Sometimes needing something makes it hard to hear what the other person is actually saying.”

Leila rested her forehead against the cool window. She thought of Micah offering another shopping bag, of Esme asking where she was staying, of the way she heard an accusation inside ordinary kindness.

She did not say any of that aloud.

At the hotel, they carried the bags upstairs one at a time. Toby woke enough to insist on carrying his boots himself. Mum took the folder. Leila took the clothes and the little notebook from the museum.

Before bed, she opened it to a blank page.

She drew the wardrobe standing in Janice's garage, the lawnmower beside it and the tied doors. This time she did not add a room that was no longer there.