The Direction of Sorting
I carefully put the items back into the box one by one.
I had no idea why I'd brought this home in the first place.
No—bringing it was the right thing. Someday Luca or Reni might look for these things, so I should keep them safe and pass them on when the time came.
Even if I didn't want to.
"……."
I closed the lid of the box, folded my hands on top of it, and let out a sigh no one could hear.
I knew rationally that I shouldn't feel this way, yet I kept turning petty and small.
What this box held was the children's roots…
Even if they no longer remembered, it was my duty to tell them gently how much their parents had loved them.
But I hated the idea of them forming feelings and memories from that photo album that I could never share.
Those pictures would stir the children's forgotten memories, and…
Luca might not, but Reni would almost certainly draw a clear line inside himself between me and his real parents.
I hated that.
I hated it so, so much.
I knew it was my own selfish greed. I also knew it was an undeniable fact that their parents were very much still out there, separate from me.
I was terrified that as the children grew, as puberty arrived, they would look at the photos inside this box and remember that I was no blood relative—just a stranger—and that the moment they turned eighteen they would take the album and leave home without a second glance.
…Reni was a tender-hearted child, so he might not turn his back on me coldly. But he might quietly draw a line in his heart instead. That frightened me even more.
"Hey, what's wrong? Something up?"
I must have kept my head buried in the box too long. Greg shoved his chair back, came over, and shook my shoulder.
"……Nothing."
"Your voice is all choked up. What is it?"
"Why? What's going on?"
Cassandra stood up from her seat as well and looked our way.
"……."
I couldn't find an answer, so the silence stretched on, but neither of them rushed me. They simply waited.
It wasn't something I could keep hiding forever from people I saw every day, and there was nowhere to run.
…Maybe, deep down, I had opened the box precisely because I knew people I could confide in were nearby.
Instinctively understanding that I couldn't handle it alone, I had prepared myself to ask for help before I ever lifted the lid.
I wanted to hear objective advice from a third-person perspective, to confess my petty insides and take the scolding, and maybe then I could sort out the heavy feelings this box held.
After hearing the whole story, of course they scolded me.
"Are you an idiot?"
"Jun, are you a total dummy?"
"……."
That wasn't the direction I had expected.
I had thought they would jab at my narrow little heart. Instead they lamented my stupidity.
"Good grief. If the kids ever heard what was going through your head, they'd be so hurt."
"Right? Do you have to advertise so hard that you grew up with no friends and no family?"
Cassandra smacked Greg on the back.
"Greg, that last part might be true, but it was way too much."
"Yeah, fair. But a real friend has to say the painful stuff too."
"……."
I listened quietly. Their sharp words didn't wound me. Instead, a tiny shoot of hope began to sprout.
After all, if I was just a complete fool and every thought I'd been having until a moment ago was utterly useless, that would be the greatest relief in the world.
"We can see with our own eyes how much the kids love you. Are you seriously ignoring their feelings right now?"
Of course not. I knew how much the children loved me.
"Jun. Even when puberty hits and kids clash with their parents, the bond between parent and child doesn't snap that cleanly. And 'parent' isn't just about shared blood—it's about the person who raised you."
"Hang around a supermarket cashier for a few years and you get attached. You really think family bonds break that easy?"
"Exactly. Besides, the kids are going to spend way more time with you from now on than they ever did with whatever's in that album."
I listened to them in silence.
I could feel the heavy stone that had been crushing my chest slowly disappearing.
I felt like I might cry, but I didn't.
Because I no longer needed to.
"I was just being an idiot, then."
"It's not that we don't understand the feelings you were talking about. But the truth is still the truth."
The truth is still the truth. Those words sounded so grateful to my ears.
So that was the truth.
The children loved me too. We still had so much time left together. We were a family…
If that was the truth, then I was truly glad.
After Reni came home from his after-school program, I called the boy who had been playing with Luca over and sat him on my lap.
"Reni. Daddy got something from Mother Superior. Want to look at it together?"
The moment I opened the lid of the box, Reni pointed at the three pairs of socks sitting right on top and exclaimed,
"Ah! Ah! I remember those! Those are Luca's!"
"Yeah, that's right."
I carefully smoothed my voice and answered with a smile. Reni bounced excitedly in place.
"Daddy! Put these on Luca!"
"Mm… Reni, I think these socks are too small for Luca now."
I, who could faintly understand the heart of a parent who had never gotten to put those socks on their child even once, couldn't say anything more.
Who could possibly measure the pain of being unable to give a love you had fully intended to give?
Fortunately, the child didn't seem to feel that deep a regret or sorrow.
Reni gazed out the playroom window at Luca with a slightly disappointed look, then brightened as if he'd just found the correct answer.
"Ah! Ah! Then we can give them to Sabrina! Sabrina's still only one month old! Her feet are tiny, right?"
"Ah…"
"Yeah, that would work!"
Greg answered for me with a laugh. He pushed his chair closer, reached out, and ruffled Reni's hair.
"Our Reni really knows how these things work, huh? When big brothers and sisters grow up, the little ones inherit their clothes and shoes and all that."
"Aha, I see."
Reni giggled, then suddenly seemed to remember something. He looked up at me and asked,
"Then later, will Luca wear my clothes too?"
I smiled softly and cupped the boy's cheek with one hand.
"Probably. When our Reni grows a lot and his clothes don't fit anymore, Luca can wear them."
Reni opened his mouth, closed it again, and tilted his head as if thinking hard.
"Then what about me? Do I get to wear Daddy's clothes?"
The child's adorable idea finally made me laugh out loud.
"Our Reni will get brand-new clothes from Daddy. I'll even make him clothes with star cushions on them if that's the design he wants."
"Wow, yes!"
Reni did a little happy shoulder dance, then suddenly glanced back at Luca and whispered,
"But it would be nice if Luca got new clothes sometimes too."
"Of course. Sometimes Luca needs new clothes as well."
"Okay!"
With that, Reni hurriedly slid off my lap.
He hadn't even looked at the things under the socks yet, but he must have spotted Luca crawling toward the block tower he had carefully stacked.
Greg and I watched as Reni diverted Luca's attention elsewhere and successfully prevented the collapse of his hard-built tower.
"……I think that's enough for today."
My heart was prepared, but there was no need to call a happily playing child over just to show him the things in the box.
Maybe on some sunny afternoon.
We could have a nice snack together and gently walk through the child's memories then.
While I was thinking that, Greg reached out, set one pair of the tiny socks on his palm, examined them, and asked,
"If you're okay with it, I honestly think it'd be great to put these on our Sabrina. Rachel would probably think so too. What do you say?"
"……I don't know."
I had finished sorting out my feelings about the album, but the objects themselves were another matter. Should they be left exactly as they were? Or were socks just socks, and the right thing was to let them fulfill their purpose?
I didn't know. Maybe it was because I wasn't the original owner of these socks. Grief and confusion tangled together until I couldn't think straight.
When it came to the children's future, I believed I had to make choices that were both brave and careful. But when it came to their past, I still had no idea how far I should step in.
I was sinking into those unproductive thoughts when Greg's gentle voice pulled me back to the surface again.
"The reason these socks were left behind is sad, but… you know, my dad used to say something a long time ago."
I lifted my head and looked at him. I knew Greg's mother had remarried last year, but this was the first time he had ever brought up his father.
"Ah, before Mom and Dad got divorced, I used to eavesdrop on them talking in the living room sometimes. Anyway…"
Greg's eyes wandered as if he were momentarily visiting some moment from his childhood, then he shook his head.
"Looking back, I'm not even sure it was something only my dad said. Now that I think about it, it's just something people say all the time. You know—the idea that grief belongs to those who are left behind."
"……Yeah."
Grief, loneliness—everything belonged to those who remained.
Maybe we thought that way simply because it made the hearts of the ones left behind feel a little lighter.
If I told myself that I would bear the sorrow here, so the one who had already gone could leave with a free and unburdened heart, then my own chest ached a little less.
Humans always think in whatever direction lightens the load on their own hearts, don't they?
Since we who remain can never truly know the hearts of those who have gone, believing that they aren't sad makes my own present heart feel a little better.
I understood what Greg was trying to say. Still…
"……I don't know. Why do I not know so many things?"
I lowered my head again and stared at the tiny baby socks resting on Greg's palm.
The thought crossed my mind that I ought to return them to Alicia, only to be immediately followed by the fear that it would be far too cruel to someone who still suffered seizures at the mere sight of Luca and couldn't bear the past.
That must have been why Mother Superior had left these things with me instead of her. If I had never asked, she might never have handed them over at all.
For an ordinary person, the proper thing would be to let them dispose of or keep the items themselves so they could find their own closure. But Alicia was not in a condition where that was possible.
I had never asked her directly, so I couldn't be certain, but piecing together the fragments of conversation I overheard here and there, it seemed Alicia was currently practicing burying everything so she could keep living from now on.
Looking back was unbearable, so she was trying not to recall the past at all and focus only on whatever was right in front of her eyes.
When she woke in the morning she straightened her room, washed herself, ate, then concentrated on prayer.
She cleaned, did odd jobs needed by the church, ate again, cleared the table, washed the dishes.
She worked and prayed so that there would be no room left for personal thoughts, and when the pain still managed to dig its way in, she borrowed the strength of medicine.
Of course I had never seen it with my own eyes, so this was only my guess about the life she was living.
On weekends, when that kind of routine was impossible, she probably took a slightly stronger dose. The Alicia I met on weekends showed almost no emotion at all, so different from the first day I saw her.
"……."
There was nothing I could do for Alicia's treatment, so I had never asked about it in detail. It was more accurate to say I still found her burdensome and simply didn't want to know.
Then what about me—someone who, unlike her, could still sort out my own heart even if it was a little hard?
What should I do?