The military uniform

Dust Dancing in Sunbeams

Brass doorknobs are typically cool to the touch, especially in areas that don’t receive direct sunlight; however, I turned this doorknob and was immediately hit with a familiar scent: damp wood, mothballs, and some type of sweetness and decay (similar to wet paper). The smell caught in the back of my throat, and suddenly I’m a child again, hearing Mom’s sharp tone: “Don’t you dare.”

I’m thirty-four. I entered the house regardless.

The stairs screamed beneath my feet. With every step, a cloud of dust erupted from the floorboards, clearly upset at having been disturbed. A single small window allowed a sliver of yellowish-orange light to filter into the space — the light felt like honey. The dust swirled inside the light like intoxicated moths.

As I walked across the floorboards, they were warm where the sun had touched them and cold elsewhere. Warm, cold, warm, cold… I used to believe it was the house breathing. I now understand it’s simply poor insulation.

Grandfather’s trunk sat in the corner like a toad. The leather wasn’t merely cracked — it was destroyed. The leather curled up like bark that has split and fallen off. There were mouse droppings covering the half-fallen sheet on top of the trunk. The lock had been broken for years. When I opened the trunk, the hinges didn’t creak. They sighed instead. Like relief or resignation.

His military uniform wasn’t folded neatly as I remembered. Instead, it had been stuffed in there, bunched up. Whoever had placed it in there had done so with anger or fear.

I pulled it out, and dust exploded so thickly I had to shut my eyes. The wool was coarse and heavy. The insignia on the collar was still visible, small, gold thread was tarnished to a green-bronze color. Not the Greek flag. Maybe something with an eagle?

I pressed the insignia to my nose before I could stop myself.

Yes, pipe tobacco. But also something metal. Not old coins, that would be too romantic. More like when you handle pennies and then smell your fingers afterward. Copper smell. Blood smell. And underneath all of this — faint and sour: old sweat. Fear sweat.

I slipped it over my head. The sleeves enveloped my hands. The wool scratched my neck. It was heavily weighted — not just by the weight of the uniform itself. Heavily, as if I’d taken on someone else’s grief.

In the spotted mirror hanging on the wall, I saw him. His eyes in my face. His slouch in my shoulders. My stomach hurt.

“Dressing up again?”

I jumped. Bit the inside of my mouth. Tasted blood.

Aunt Eleni stood in the doorway. Impossible! I hadn’t heard her come down the screaming stairs. She was backlit, her face obscured, her shadow stretched like spilled ink.

She didn’t yell. Never did. Simply looked at me with those tired, knowing eyes.

“It fits,” I said, voice too young, too defensive.

Her skirt whispered softly against the floor as she approached. Her dry, papery, warm fingers touched the insignia. Her expression tightened.

“Some things fit us better than we’re ready for,” she paused. “It fit him too well.”

She took my chin and turned my face toward the light. “Look at the dust. It’s been dancing here longer than both of us. Longer than him.”

We stood there. Could’ve been seconds. Could’ve been minutes. Her breathing was slow and deliberate. Mine was rapid and shallow. The house groaned around us.

She helped me remove the uniform. Folded it correctly this time. Smoothed my hair. Nuzzled my cheek. Smelled lavender.

“Some memories aren’t yours to carry,” my love, “they just... pass through you.”

I believed she meant the war. The one we discussed during dinner — the one that brought pride with it.

But she meant the other one. The one no one talks about. The one that made Mom burn letters in the backyard, her face orange with firelight, her face wet with tears she wouldn’t admit to.

The house was sold three years ago. The trunk is gone.

But occasionally the sun shines in a way that causes dust to appear in my apartment at the same angle that it was in the house, and I feel the wool on my shoulders once again. Waiting.

Things that we shouldn’t touch leave their mark on us the most. The silence between screams is louder than the screams themselves.

I watched dust dance in sunbeams, trying to determine which memories are mine and which ones live in me — passed down like eye color.

Most of the time, I have no idea.