When Tom’s eyes locked on the empty room in our living room, he got a scared look on his face. He began to say, “Please tell me you didn’t…” but it was too late.
For months, I’d been telling Tom to get rid of that old couch. I would ask Tom, “When are you going to take the couch out?” It’s almost completely falling apart!”
He would say “tomorrow” and not look up from his phone. Sometimes they say, “Next weekend.” “This time is real,” they said.
Let me tell you a secret: tomorrow never came.
I finally lost it last Saturday, after seeing that moldy piece of furniture take up half of our living room for another week. It took me a while to get the thing out of the house, but I finally did it and took it straight to the dump. I was pretty proud of myself when I got back.
After work, Tom came home and as soon as he walked through the door, he gasped when he saw the brand-new couch I had bought. I thought he might thank me or at least smile for a second.
Instead, he was shocked and looked around. “Wait, what is this?”
I looked at the couch with a smile. “Wow! finally got rid of that blight. Doesn’t it look great?”
He looked at me like I had done something wrong, and his face turned pale. “You… threw away the old couch?”
I was shocked and said, “Well, yeah.” “Tom, you said you’d do it for months. It smelled awful!”
He stared at me with wide eyes and a scared look on his face. “Are you sure?” “You threw away the plan?”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
He thought to himself as he took a shaky breath. “No, no, no…” This is not going to happen. “This is not likely to happen.”
“Tom!” I spoke up because I was getting a little scared. “Do you mean to say that?”
He looked up at me with scared eyes. “I…” I’m too busy to explain. Put on your shoes. We need to leave. Right now.”
As I stood there and tried to understand, my stomach turned. “Go?” “Where are we going?”
He yelled, “To the dump!” and ran out the door. “We need to get it back right away.”
“What is it too late for?” I was confused as I followed him. “Tom, that’s a couch.” A couch that has mold and broken springs! Why is this so important?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said as he turned around at the door.
I crossed my arms and said, “Try me.” “Please explain your strong desire to search through a trash heap for a couch.”
“I’ll explain on the way.” “Just trust me,” he said, looking back over his shoulder as he grabbed the doorknob. “Okay, you have to trust me.”
I got a chill from the way he looked at me.
It was very quiet on the way to the dump. I looked over at Tom a lot, but he was so focused on the road and had his hands on the driving wheel so tightly. He was so scared and silent that it was making things worse. I had never seen him this way before.
I finally spoke up and said, “Tom.” He didn’t even flinch. “Could you please explain what’s going on?”
He shook his head and didn’t even look at me. “We’ll show you when we get there.”
“What?” I pressed harder, and the anger in my voice rose. “Can you believe how crazy this sounds?” You made me come out here to get a couch. “Tom, get a couch!”
“I know,” he said in a low voice, looking at me for a split second before looking back at the road. “I know it sounds crazy, but trust me, you’ll get it when we do.”
I put my hands together and sighed until we got to the dump. Before I could say anything else, Tom jumped out and ran like his life depended on it to the gate.
He pointed to a worker and begged, “Please.” at the end of his sentence. Early on, my wife brought something here. I need to get it back. It’s very important.
When the worker looked at us with doubt, he raised an eyebrow and looked between us. But Tom’s face must have convinced him. He let her in with a sigh. “All right, pal. You should move quickly, though.
Tom ran ahead and looked through the mound of trash like he was crazy. He looked at every pile as if they held valuable treasures. While I stood there, ankle-deep in trash, I felt silly watching my husband dig through piles of trash.
Tom’s head snapped up with wide eyes after what seemed like a long time. He pointed and yelled, “There!” He quickly climbed over and threw himself onto our old couch, which was lying on its side in a heap. Without stopping, he turned it over and put his hands in a small hole in the torn lining.
“What, Tom?” I was about to start, but then I saw him pull out a thin, yellowed piece of paper that looked old and dirty. It was just a thin piece of old paper with shaky lettering that didn’t look like anything. I just stared at it, confused.
“This?” I was shocked and asked. “All of this… for that?”
I looked at his face though. He looked at that piece of paper like it knew everything.
Tom’s eyes were red and filled with tears, and his hands were shaking. I didn’t know what to say or do, so I stood still. In the five years we’d been together, I had never seen him so broken, holding that torn piece of paper like it was the most important thing he had ever owned.
He took a deep breath and stared at the paper with a face that showed both happiness and sadness. “This…this is the plan my brother and I came up with,” he finally said, his voice rough. “This is our house map.” “Where we hide.”
I blink and take a quick look at the paper he’s holding so carefully. From here, it looked like a piece of old, scribbled paper. But I took it when he held it out to me, his face breaking as he did so. I looked more closely.
The layout of the house we lived in at the time was made with colored pencils, and the writing was a little shaky. The map of rooms and spaces looked a little like a cartoon. There were signs in every room that said different things, like “Spy Base” by a bush in the backyard, “Tom’s Hideout” under the stairs, and “Jason’s Castle” in the loft.
Just barely able to speak, he said, “Jason was my younger brother.” “The couch was our “safe spot” where we would hide the map.” He was so lost in a memory that it was hard to hear himself speak.
I stared at him, trying to figure out what he was trying to tell me. Tom had never once talked about having a brother.
He took a deep breath and looked well away. “Something bad happened in the backyard when Jason was eight years old.” “We were making up a game to play.” I could see how hard it was for him to keep going as he choked back a sob. “I was supposed to watch him but something else caught my eye.”
The words he said hit me hard, and my hand went to my mouth.
“He was climbing a tree… the one next to our spy base,” he said with a small, angry smile on his face. “He… he slapped.” “Fall from the top.”
“Oh, Tom…” I whispered, and my voice broke. I tried to talk to him, but he seemed stuck in the past.
“I blamed myself,” he said, and his voice cracked. “Every day I still do.” I only have that map left of him. All the secret places we built together. It’s… it’s the last bit of him. He tried to wipe his face with his arm, but tears wouldn’t stop.
I pulled him close and wrapped my arms around him. Every sob he made made me feel his pain. It was more than just a couch. It reminded him of a brother he could never get back and a youth he had lost.
“Tom, I didn’t know.” “I’m so sorry,” I told him as I gave him a tight hug.
He took a weak breath and wiped his face. “You’re not to blame.” I needed to tell you… I didn’t want to remember what I did wrong, though. It felt like something I could never fix after losing him. He shut his eyes and spoke softly for a long time.
He finally took a deep breath in and out and smiled weakly, almost ashamed. “All right, come on. “Let’s go home.”
It was quiet on the way back, but not the quiet kind. There was a lightness between us, like we had brought something valuable back with us, even if it was just a piece of paper. I finally felt like I understood this secret side of him, the one he had kept hidden for years by not talking about it.
We put the old, worn, yellow map in a small frame and hung it in the living room so we could both see it that night. Tom took a step back and looked at it with a mood that wasn’t quite sad anymore.
The shade was still there, but it looked a little less harsh. For the first time in years, he seemed at peace as I watched him.
As time went on, the house became full of new memories and the sound of laughing that seemed to warm every room.
After a few years, when our kids were old enough to understand, Tom sat them down with the framed map and told them about the places he and Jason had made to hide and feel safe. As I stood in the hallway, I saw the kids’ eyes get really big as they were drawn into this secret part of their dad’s life.
I found the kids drawing their own “map” on the living room floor one afternoon. There were crayons and pencils all over the place. They had big smiles on their faces when they saw me.
“Look, Mom!” “Look, we made our own house map!” my son yelled, proudly showing off their work. Their secret lairs were marked with names like “Secret Lair” in the closet and “Dragon’s Lair” in the basement.
Tom walked over and looked at what they had made with bright eyes. With a soft smile, he knelt next to them and traced the lines, as if they had given him back another little bit of what he had lost.
He said in a warm voice, “It looks like you’re carrying on the tradition.”
His eyes were bright as he looked up at him. “Yes, Dad.” Our plan is the same as yours.