Draft(ed): Decoupage

He drops the shoe box of family photos on the concrete floor of the garage.  

He feels the chill on the sole of his feet, even though the morning air hovers around 71.    

He searches for the bucket of varnish he purchased yesterday and finds it alone by the garage door, next to the his and hers bikes and the beach chairs and beach umbrella that lean up against the unpainted wall.  A fine layer of dust covers the bikes and beach gear.  Nothing else occupies the garage, no tools, no boxes, no christmas ornaments, no lawn mower, nothing else save for a side table he brought into the garage from the living room, the one she intended on decorated with family photographs, a job which she left for him to do.  

He knew she wanted him to do it, not by asking him, though that would have been much easier.  No, she did what she always did, left for him a little hint that she wanted him to do it by placing the shoe box with the photographs on the dining room table upon which both of them stacked incomplete projects as well as other things, papers from work, bills that came through the mail.
They no longer broke bread at the table.  

He senses that she had already sorted through the pictures, had bundled the pictures into different groups, bound them each together with a metal clip, which surprises him because she habitually handles her valuables regardless of their monetary worth with detailed delicacy.  He smiles at the departure in her character, squeezing the collection of memories between metal.

He imagines if he removes the black clip, an impression will remain behind.    

She appropriated the side table from the trash pile of one their neighbors.  It sat among a number of broken and rusted pieces of furniture.    

"Stop the car," screamed excitedly.  He stomped his foot on the break, the car lurched forward, and a squeal erupted from underneath the car.    

"What?" he responded.  He scanned the road in front of him for the animal or person which must have entered into the road.  

She didn't answer him.  Instead, she rushed over to the stack of trash around which leaves and other litter had gathered.  A truck quickly approached threatening to rear end him if he did not relocate his SUV to the curb.    

"What are you doing?" he asked her as she sorted through the trash pile.    

"Hold on."  She didn't look up when she said it. And then she grasped it in her hands, like the victor of a race might hold onto to a trophy, with one hand almost over her head.  As she lifted it, he observed it shifting in her hands on its own, manufactured with only three plain boxed legs a thick top, and a simple shelf underneath sandwiched into place between the three legs.  

Clearly, it had deserved to be on the refuse pile.

"What's that?" he asked out the rolled-down passenger.    

"It's a Mission-style side table.  Now unlock the back so I can put it in the trunk."  

He unlocked all the doors and watched as she delicately placed the unearthed treasure into car.  He sniffed the air trying to determine whether the piece had absorbed any of the stench of trash.  

The slam of the trunk door jostled the car forward, and he felt the muscles in his back and neck contract as he pursed his lips.  

When she got back into the car, she buckled herself in, and then, slapping her hands on her upper legs satisfactorily, advised him that she had settled in for the remaining ride back to their residence.    

"Do you think you should have asked the owner whether you could have taken that?" he asked.  Thoughts of the local police department stopping them and doing a search of the vehicle and then arresting him for theft flowed through his mind, a tingling flush of blood rushing to his cheeks as he imagined the embarassment he woud feel.  

"Nah.  It was in the trash.  They don't want it anymore.  Let's go."    

But he remained seated by the side of the curb, waiting for her to change her mind.  

But she didn't, and so he asked further, "What are you going to do with it?"  He believed he already knew what she had intended to do with the table, let it establish a nest in the house with all the other pieces of furniture that she accumulated over the years, pieces from her grandparents when they were first starting their life together and couldn't afford furniture, pieces they purchased in garage sales and at antique shops which she assured him hid a value that the seller couldn't see, pieces taken from his aunt's house when his uncle asked him to sort through items left behind when his aunt  passed away.  She had collected enough furniture to start her own furniture store.  Certainly, the number of pieces exceeded the amount permitted by one house to hold.  

She responded in a practical, if not slightly perturbed manner.  "I am going to do a project with it, probably decoupage some pictures on it."    

She failed to label any of the bundles of pictures so he could not discern how she grouped them.  

He unfastened one of the clips and spread out the many photos before him, a spray of memories washing back over him.  In one older, yellowed picture, she sunk into a leather couch leaning her head on her mother as they both stared at the photographer.

She wore a slight smile which contrasted with the seriousness of her mother's mouth, tight, drawn together, tense.  He noticed that their eyes were different too, her eyes wide, bright, her mother's, beady, piercing, belieing her mother's compassionate nature.  Behind them, a window permitted light to back their heads and created a shadow whih fell across their faces.    

He rubbed his thumb along the bottom edge of the picture, and then turned it over to see if she had written anything there.  Nothing.  He could not recall the exact date of the picture.    

He and she traveled to visit her mother and father and cousin many times, staying at a home which her mother inherited from her grandparents after they had passed away.  When they visited, her mother permitted them to stay in one of the rooms of her grandparents home.  Her cousin maintained the residence, if you coud call it that.  Once her grandparents passed away and her cousin moved in, a blanket of timelessness fell upon the home, freezing everything in place.    

From the clock on the mantel, he determined that the picture had been taken in the early afternoon, which made sense since her mother and father had to travel some distance from their own home to her grandparents home.    

'A keeper,' he thought, and pulled the photograph from the stack, placing it into a new one.    

Underneath the pile of ...