Movin'...

"Melissa. It's time to get up." Kate's soft voicepulled me back to reality.
"Kay." I open my eyes.
"We've got about 10 minutes ok?"
"Ok." I roll out of bed and get dressed. I eat a biscuit and drink some coffee. My eyes are puffy and swollen. I think I slept 3 maybe 4 hours. We all pile into my cousin's truck and head up to Anderson. I don't recognize the road we're on. We get on to I85and I'm overwhelmed again. Tears. Always tears. Laura hangs on to me and squeezes me. My heart hurts. I want to vomit. It takes a little over an hour to get to Anderson. We don't have Rob's apt keys. A maintenance guy meets us and let's us in after we prove who we are. Laura holds my hand as we walk to Rob's front door. I knew this would be hard but I didn't anticipate it being this hard. I wanted to be here though. I want to touch his things, help his family, be there. We walk through the front door. Everything is as Rob left it. We carefully walk through each room, quietly taking everything in. Kate begins to wash his dishes. Laura and I go to his bedroom. His bed is kinda madeup, clean laundry is piled on the floor, and his closet doors are open. I let go of Laura and walk into the bathroom. His electric shaver is still plugged in. His toothbrush looks as if he just used it. His hairstuff and shaving cream is out, the shower curtain is open. I wander back into his bedroom. I'm alone. I notice aletter I wrote him, a card that said "I love you" on it and a movie ticket stub for "The Bank Job" were placed on his nightstand. I curl up on the bed and cry. Eventually, Laura and I get to folding all his clothes. I inhale the sweetness of his clean laundry. He's so picky about his laundry. Carefully and with the utmost care and love, we fold each shirt, pair of jeans, etc. until it's all done. More people come to help. Things move quickly. In the kitchen, Laura, Rob's friend Jen and I pack up all his dishes. So many dishes. So many kitchen items. Rob liked to cook. I have to take a walk. Laura goes with me and listens to me as I tell her about Rob wanting to make key lime pie for me. Back in his place, Rob's boss arrives with Kate and her dad. He brings us lunch and tells us how sorry he is. I get to meet Robby, Rob's best friend I've heard so much about.
"Robby, he loved and respected you so much. He loved visiting on the weekends with you guys and had nothing but the nicest things to say about you."
He nods. "I heard nothing but great things about you too. He met you and I've never seen him happier."
Laura asks about my ring. I tell her my story. Kate asks a little while later and so does my cousin. I'm happy to tell the story. Laura and I put away all the contents of his closets.School papers, pictures, letters, cards and various bills spill out as we stand on our tip toes to pull them off the shelves. It feels invasive to go through his things. I want to respect his privacy like I would if he were here. Normally I hate moving and everything that goes alongwith it but this is so different. I wonder if he sees us? I wonder if this or that is ok? Honey where do you want me to put this? Tell me! We get everything loaded up. All that's left is this empty shell of what was once his. I want to sprawl outon the floor and sink into it. I'm afraid to lose my memories, afraid to go home. We drive all the way back to Stockbridge and unload everything in the truck into a storage unit. I'm so delirious but manage to lift heavy things and place them where they need to go. My cousin takes us to Robby's to get Rob's Explorer. Rob was driving Robby's Jeep when he died. Kate and I climb into the Explorer. It still smells new. She opens the sunroof and rolls down the windows. As we leave, I see the skid marks on the road where Rob died. It was such a freak thing. He was barely moving,when something malfunctioned and managed to flip thething. We go to her parent's house. Laura is there alreadyand Rob's youngest sister, Lesley, their mom and dad are too.
"Melissa, tell mom about your ring." Laura pipes up.
I smile and explain the whole story. We're crying when I'm done and she says,
"I wish he were here to buy it for you. I know he would have. Ya know... in his own time. You know how he is with doing things.. everything has to be "just so"."
"Yeah, Rob would have some elaborate plan for it."Laura giggled.
My heart aches. I'll never know his plan. I ask his mom if I could see his room. He moved into their basement when he was in high school
. "Sure, come on down." She explains how he had everything all neat and put away. It's cluttered now. She tells me about all his highschool awards, and shows me all kinds of pictures. She had some laundry of his and asked if I wanted some of his shirts.
"I do." I smile.
"Take what you want. I'll be upstairs."She walks away and I pick up the shirt he wore when we first went out for coffee. I carefully choose a few more and head upstairs to show her.
"Thank you so much." I begin to cry.
"I know it would help me to have them to sleep in, or whatever." she's crying too and hugging me.
"I thought about you yesterday. I wanted to come see you. I wanted you to know I was thinking about you, I just, I just don't want to overstep any boundaries." I stammer.
"There are no boundaries where you're concerned.You're family. We want you to sit with us at the service." she replies. I nod, a fresh wave of tears coming.
"Melissa, thank you for telling Kate about Rob'sburial plans." his mom changes the subject.
"I'm sorry, I can't remember telling her. I told my aunt but I didn't think I told Kate."
"She said she heard it. I just assumed you told her."
I nod then explain how this happened. "Last Sunday we left your house and we were driving and talking. We always ask each other obscure questions and I just said "When you die, do you wantto be buried, cremated or donate your body toscience?" and he said "I'm definitly not donating mybody. Um... I guess I'd want to be buried. I dunno,that's weird." Then literally seven days later he's gone. I had even forgotten about it until my aunt andI were leaving your house on Sunday and again, it popped into my head and I had to tell her."
"I'm so glad you did. I'm so glad that you knew that because we were going to have him cremated. We changedthe plans after Kate told us what he told you."
How do these things happen? What made me ask him? This whole relationship was the most unbelievable thing. Iwish I could explain it better but it's like the whole time we were together I knew there was something...else... like Rob was definitly the one for me, but then there was something else that seemed to almost be pushing me forward, trying to prepare me for something because although he was in my plan, he wasn't going to be here forever. I just felt so compelled to spend every moment with him just being in his company,loving him and being happy. I'm usually in such a hurry but not with him. Everything was so perfect that we both could hardly believe this was real.
His mom takes me home. I talk to my parent's for awhile before they go to sleep. I bounce between checking my email and staring into space. I talk to him in my head, as if he's here. I tell him over and over again that I love him. I wonder if he hears me.