The Second Shelf

The house smelled like time.

Not dust, exactly, though it was everywhere. More like old paperbacks, lavender soap, and the faintest trace of cinnamon — the kind Dad used to sprinkle in Mom’s coffee when she wasn’t looking. I hadn’t stepped foot inside since the funeral, and even now, I hesitated in the doorway like a guest in my own childhood.

Mom had asked me to help her clean out the house before the estate sale. She was moving into something “smaller and easier,” her way of saying lonelier. I flew in from Chicago, dreading it more than I admitted. Sorting through a lifetime felt heavier than lifting it.

The living room was first. Dusty floral couches, crocheted doilies on the arms, and a faded rug that still bore the coffee stain from the year I dropped my mug during finals week.

And then, there was the bookshelf.

It stood by the bay window — tall, sturdy, and honey-colored. Dad built it the summer after I turned ten. I remember the sound of the drill in the garage, the smell of sawdust, and the way he hummed Sinatra while sanding the edges smooth. We weren’t allowed to put “just any old thing” on it.

“No clutter,” he’d said. “Only stories worth remembering.”

It had five shelves.

The top held leather-bound classics: Dickens, Brontë, Baldwin.

The third shelf was for reference books, mostly Dad’s old textbooks and atlases.

The bottom held albums and photo boxes.

But the second shelf — that was mine.

He’d given it to me one afternoon with the seriousness of a knight bestowing a sword.

“Whatever you put here,” he said, “should mean something to you. That’s the only rule.”

At ten, it meant pressed flowers, a flashlight, and a broken Tamagotchi. By twelve, a dog-eared journal, a plastic trophy from the spelling bee, and a tiny snow globe from our family trip to Maine.

The last time I changed it, I was seventeen.

I’d just gotten accepted to college. I was eager, impatient, and half in love with the idea of leaving. I tucked in my acceptance letter, a folded page from one of my stories, and a mix CD my best friend made. Then I left. I never touched the second shelf again.

Now, standing in front of it, the sun cut through the window like it always did — painting gold stripes across the floor and illuminating the dust motes floating in the air. The second shelf sat frozen in time, just as I’d left it.

The letter had yellowed. The CD was scratched. My story, handwritten and full of teenage ambition, was faded and fragile.

And beneath it, something I didn’t remember.

A small envelope.

My name in Dad’s handwriting.

I sat down on the floor, cross-legged like a kid again, and opened it with trembling fingers.

Inside was a single sheet of paper.

*If you’re reading this, then maybe you’re finally home. I hope life gave you wings. But I hope it never made you forget where you first learned to fly.

This shelf has always held more than just your things. It held the weight of your growing up, of all the versions of you we got to love.

Some memories collect dust. Others bloom again in time. This one, I hope, does both.*

—Dad*

I didn’t cry right away.

I just sat there, letting the quiet echo around me. Letting the presence of him, of this house, of that shelf, wrap around me like a blanket I didn’t know I’d missed.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. So I came back to the living room, turned on the old floor lamp, and sat in front of the shelf again.

This time, I brought new things.

A Polaroid of me and Mom at the lake last summer.

The pen Dad gave me when I published my first short story.

And a slip of paper on which I’d written:

“You never really leave the places that raise you. You just carry them differently.”

I placed them gently on the second shelf, beside the old ones.

In the morning, Mom found me there.

“You kept it just like it was,” I said.

She smiled, tired but soft. “He wouldn’t let me touch it. Said one day, you'd come back for it.”

I nodded.

Not everything worth remembering needs to be useful. Some things just need to be remembered.

Weeks later, after the house was sold and Mom settled into her new apartment, I took the second shelf with me.

Just that one piece.

It sits in my writing room now. Smaller than I remembered, but somehow still big enough to hold a life.

Sometimes, I run my fingers along the edge and think of Dad’s steady hands, the way he said stories mattered, even when the world didn’t always agree.

And every time I add something new, I think:

Some memories don’t fade. They wait.