Every Little Part

Sabrina sat back in the kitchen chair, rubbing her eyes. She had been sifting through the stack of documents for the better part of an hour and she wasn’t anywhere near close to being done. As if there was any finality to be had in this situation. It was one of the many boxes to check off on a list she found online when she searched “what to do when there is a death in the family". She knew filling out mounds of paperwork for insurance claims and pension checks had to be done, and soon.

Proximity and availability meant this task landed on her. Her sister Annalee had her hands full with her three kids and her brother Junior was on the other side of the world. And her mom was in no fit shape to sort through the countless lines of text. Who could expect her to? So Sabrina relegated her to dig out the needed documents; the birth certificate, the social security card, the marriage license, the death certificate – all that was left to prove her father was there but now is no longer.

“Did you find them?” Sabrina yelled, craning around the corner to look down the hall towards her parent’s room.

“Yeah, I did," her mom yelled back.

After a few seconds of hearing nothing else, annoyed, Sabrina widened her eyes and waved her hands as if to say “And? What are you waiting for?” but she thought better about saying it out loud. They were all on edge those days and couldn’t afford the slightest push. Sighing, Sabrina resigned herself to get up and walk down to the room.

“So, do you have them all?” Sabrina said as she walked in. She saw a frail, tiny thing of a woman sitting on the edge of the bed, her long gray hair falling over one shoulder in a fraying braid. Sabrina had always thought of her mom as this strong pocket-sized warrior. It hurt her to see her shattered this way.

“Yeah, I have them. They’re right here,” her mom said, waving to a Manila folder laying on the blue and brown checkered duvet beside her.

As Sabina walked towards the bed, she noticed the small black notebook her mom was holding, engrossed in its pages. Even though it was nondescript she remembered the notebook, albeit vaguely. Something about it tickled the sunshiny edges of her memory.

“You remember this notebook?” Her mom asked as Sabrina stepped in closer to look over the pages. On the off-white sheets she saw faded scribbles of blue ink spelling lines of what looked like a list of random items, but as soon as she saw “dirt bike” Sabrina immediately knew what those lines were.

“Is that… is that the Finger Money book?!” Sabrina yelled with a laugh, sitting down beside her mom on the bed. “Oh my God, that was so long ago!”

“You remember when y’all would sit outside and make a list of all the things we would get with that money?” Her mom said, smiling and shaking her head at the memory.

“We would sit out on that old swing in the backyard and just daydream about what we would buy like we had won the lottery or something!” Sabrina said, still looking over the notes she made all those years ago.

She could see it all now. She and Annalee bawling their eyes out when their dad first came home after the accident that claimed part of his middle finger on his right hand. Then them calming down after he gave them popsicles as if they were the ones in a splint.

“How did it happen, mom? Do you remember?” Sabrina asked as she thought back to seeing her dad’s hand all wrapped up. She remembered him being stoic about it, laughing even.

“He smashed it under the hood of his work truck or something like that. He was always coming home hurt! If it wasn’t that it was an ankle or an arm. It’s a wonder he made it to 86!” her mom chuckled. “Y’all were so excited about the prospect of him getting money from that accident. I don’t know how you got the idea. I guess he told you. But I remember you guessing how much it would be based on how much of the finger he lost. And you had to have my bill book to put it all down so we wouldn’t forget when it came in. Y’all were some morbid little kids!” Her mom said, still grinning.

“Ha! We were, weren’t we! I just knew it was going to be $20,000 or something like that. I remember Annalee wanting all these clothes and shoes and stuff, and Junior wanting that daggum dirt bike he kept talking about.” Sabrina looked over the opened page and saw “optimus prime watch” written down in her 6th grade bubbly handwriting. “And I wanted a transformer watch,” she said as a bit of melancholy started to sit in.

“He didn’t get anywhere near that much money. Joe and I just wanted to be able to pay off a few of those bills we had stacking up. Y’all had no idea how bad we really had it," her mom said.

“Why did you let us do that? We sat there and made a shopping list!” Sabrina laughed, turning to look her mom in the eyes. She could see how the funny memories had brought a little bit of life back to her mom’s sad eyes.

“I dunno. I guess it was the only time, that I can remember, when all three of you got along!” she laughed. “And y’all were looking forward to something that made you happy. That was a complete 180 from the screaming fit you first had when he came home with his hand bandaged!”

“Yeah, I remembered being freaked out. Is that why you kept the book?” Sabrina asked, closing it and then turning it over in her hands.

“I think so,” her mom said as she took the notebook from Sabrina. The two sat there for a moment, letting the clock tick between them in silence.

“Ok, I’ll go start making copies of these and finish filling out the papers so you can send them off to the insurance companies tomorrow,” Sabrina said as she stood and reached for the Manila folder of documents.

“I’ll be in there in a minute to help,” her mom said. As she walked out, Sabrina watched her mom put the little black notebook back in the file cabinet.

As Sabrina sat back at the table, refacing the mound of documents meant to put a valuation on her dad’s immeasurable life, she thought back to her “optimus prime watch” scribble. She could not recall all the details, but she knew she had a transformer watch sometime in her childhood. As much as remembering those days brought joy, she could not help but look at the papers stacked in front of her now and feel guilty. Guilty that a silly toy was worth any part of her dad.

At that moment, her mom came into the kitchen, walked straight to Sabrina, and hugged her tight.

“Don’t worry, baby. Your happiness was worth every little part of him.”