The Green Hat Box (3)

It should have been long forgotten only because of its relative insignificance in comparison to the other events of that day.

The memory is almost like a snapshot in my mind, a picture of a moment that didn’t seem important but for some reason I noticed. The memory is of mum pulling a postcard from her purse and glancing at it quickly, as if whatever message was written on the back of it she’d already read enough times to have it memorized. She scanned it as if reminding herself of a word in it that meant something, or reassuring herself of a sentiment that she didn’t want to forget. Then, almost as quickly as she pulled it out, she slipped it back into her purse. We were still in the back seat of the taxi, right after the green hat box had been rescued from its fall. After stashing the postcard back in her purse, her hand touched the new gash on the hat box on her lap, her fingers rubbing absently along the dent while her eyes searched for something outside the window.

If I hadn’t been watching her at that very moment, I would likely never have noticed.
Her eyes were worried. She had a habit of biting her lower lip when she fretted over anything, so I am sure that is what she did in those strange moments in the back of the taxi.

The postcard was from Slovenia. It was written boldly across the picture of a rocky green cliff, topped with a castle and cascading down into a clear mountain lake. I didn’t know who she knew who had been to Slovenia, and who would send her a postcard from there.

I puzzled about it while the taxi lumbered up the mountain, but then quickly forgot all about it. Children have many other things on their minds than the strange matters their parents get up to. I would probably have completely forgotten about it except for the fact that she kept that postcard for many years after wards. She had stashed it in the hat box in the top corner of her closet. I caught a glimpse of it years later, one day when she was rummaging around in her closet for something. I had been sitting on her bed, we were engaged in typical mother-teenage daughter talk, and when she pulled the hat box out of the closet and dumped it on the bed, the lid dislodged and I was able to catch sight of a few of the things she kept in it. The hat long gone, amongst the keepsakes was the postcard from Slovenia, sitting right on top. I recognized the picture right away, and was recalled immediately back to the taxi episode.

She put the lid back on the hat box quickly that day, so I didn’t get a chance to see much more of its contents.

“I wonder if it is still in the hat box now?” I said, after recounting the memory for Daisy, my sister.

“There’s only one way to find out,” Daisy answered, as she motioned the waiter for the bill.