Personal Effects by E. M. Kokie

me, until all I have left is the uniform on the bed. I force myself to once again pick it up by the plastic edges and, as gently as possible, lay it in on top. I smooth out a couple of ripples. Someone who didn’t even know T.J. made it look perfect. The least I can do is try to keep it that way. I slip the zip tie back through the closed lid, wrap tape around the cut, and slide it so the tape doesn’t show as much.
    In the third footlocker, there’s more clothes, and then a portable DVD player and several bags of DVDs. I look them over one by one, wondering which was his favorite, which ones he watched over and over, which ones he would tell me to watch, if he were here.
    I have to take a deep breath and make myself keep going. If I stop to dwell on the stuff I wish I knew, on all the ways I wish I had known T.J. better, I’ll lose it. The DVDs go into the pile to go downstairs, but I put the player aside to put back in. The DVDs, Dad will never notice around my room, but the player, covered in stickers and so obviously T.J.’s, will make him ask questions.
    The next layer down, I hit pay dirt. T.J.’s iPods — three of them, all different sizes. They’re beat all to hell and scratched and are probably the things he loved the most out of everything here. Most people don’t need more than one. T.J. took all three with him on deployment. He probably had some reason — something about their uses, or time, or convenience. Hell, maybe even types of music. He bought the Shuffle the last time he was home — he couldn’t resist its tiny size. But I guess he just couldn’t bring himself to get rid of his first true-blue one, even with the others.
    T.J. always fell asleep to music. Ran to it, too. He did pretty much everything to music. I can’t wait to hook them up and try to figure out what he listened to the most, what he fell asleep to in the middle of a war zone, and what he listened to last. God, to scroll through the songs, see his history in music — maybe even some of my own. Probably a lot of songs I first heard through the closed door of this room, my ear pressed against the other side. I put the iPods in my keep pile and move on.
    His camera’s a mess — scratched and cracked and held together with some kind of tape. I can’t get it to turn on. No memory cards. I put the camera back in, at least for now.
    A few more books, some falling apart, like they might disintegrate if I handle them too much. T.J. didn’t read much when he was home — a book or a magazine by his bed, maybe, but he didn’t just sit around and read. But these, all beat up and creased, he read these a lot. One in particular is held together by a rubber band, with the front and back cover gone, and the pages crinkled and fluttering like it’s been wet and dried out at least once. Another says
Stories from the Appalachian Trail,
a scrap of paper sticking out, marking a page. I choke, hold my breath, push on my eyes. I’m not ready to see what’s on that page, how far he read before . . . I put the four books with the pile to go downstairs.
    The next layer’s a blanket I’ve never seen before. Then a box, black-and-white and glossy, with some kind of shiny stones or shells in an intricate pattern on top. I pull it out of its plastic bag. The inside smells like wood, but it’s nearly as glossy as the outside. It’s beautiful, and I have no idea why T.J. had it. It doesn’t look like something he’d carry around with him, and I can’t see him giving it to me or Dad. But there’s something about it. I want it. But no way could I pass it off if Dad saw it in my room. Too much to risk.
    More plastic bags with nothing interesting. At the bottom are a couple pairs of jeans. Kind of a letdown, and I feel sick to my stomach. I was sure I’d find some answers, but I’m leaving with just some stuff. Some cool stuff, but still.
    I reach in to roll up the jeans so they’ll take up more room. My hand hits something more, something