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The sound of packing tape was satisfying to Caroline’s ear. Laying the cardboard flaps so that they lined up neatly, she dragged the toffee coloured tape across the seam and sealed the third box of kitchenware into its temporary home. Satisfied with her progress, she sat back and huffed out a quick, restorative breath. She was long due a break.
Initially, she had been reluctant at the news that they would be moving from the home that she had raised her family in. There were touches of this house that only she would know, the scratch on the kitchen counter when May made prepared berries for Pokeblock without a chopping board, the stain on the carpet from where Max had been working from an open study book on the floor and dropped an inky pen by accident, the scrape on the wall by the front door where the handle knocked every time they welcomed someone new into their home. Now, it would be someone else’s. Norman had tried to assuage her fears with the promise of the untold potential of their new home and new life in Evergrande City, with a bigger home and a brighter future. So, she relented to his enthusiasm and committed to an optimistic outlook, grinning whenever someone asked her about the new house and sweeping through her soon to be discarded home in a fit of anxious organisation.
Navigating her way through disorganised piles of the belongings her family had accumulated over the years, boxes that occupied the full spectrum between empty and full, and whimsically strewn cleaning products, she made her way along to the room her husband had vowed to take charge in packing: the cupboard under the stairs. It was an ominous job that had haunted her during their preparations for moving to Evergrande City. Through three children and decades of this being their home, belongings that had no place to go had found themselves discarded there, from school bags and knick knacks, and luggage and spare storage, to broken appliances and torn coats.
Norman had been so quietly excited for the move and the challenges that awaited him as the newest member of the Elite Four, but practicality and acting upon jobs that needed to be done in the domestic sphere had never been his strength. Hoping for his progress but not expecting it, rounded the corner. Instead of a pile of filled boxes and discarded black bin bags to dispose of, she found her husband, cross legged on the floor as he flipped through heavy pages of a photo album he had found. There was a serene, wistful smile that reached his eyes and stopped Caroline before she could begin to chastise his lack of progress.
“Hello love.” He spoke without looking up, but offered an arm towards her as though to gesture for Caroline to join him. Huffing slightly, but willing to indulge, she knelt on the floor next to him and allowed her husband to tuck her into his side. “I haven’t seen this in years.”
“Let’s see?” Caroline peered across. The covering of the book was a soft, mottled beige, withered by scuff marks and age. “Oh?” His statement of years was true: it had been out of her sight and therefore out of her mind since Matt had been small.
Norman’s smile remained, and he flipped another page. The first photo in the top corner showed a picture of four. Norman himself, his smile broad, with an arm around a blissfully smiling Caroline. Max stood to Caroline’s left, his glasses askew and his grin massive, straining his skin and leaving a blush across the apples of his cheeks. May stood to Norman’s right, her eyes watering and her mouth wide in laughter as she wrapped her arms around her father’s midsection. Caroline’s hands rested at her stomach, a swell evident there of a being of pure potential, unrealised and unformed.
“That was when we went to Johto,” Caroline commented softly. “One of May’s Grand Festivals.”
“Why are they both so happy?” Norman asked thoughtfully, and Caroline’s eyes wrinkled at the corners as she grinned.
“We’d just told them I was pregnant,” she replied softly, “remember?” Norman made a soft sound of recognition, his memory returning, and he tightened his hold around his wife’s shoulders. Taking a moment to honour her, he pressed his mouth to the side of her temple in a reverent, if brief, kiss. Taking the initiative, Caroline reached across to flip through the next few pages. All sorts of memories had been kept safe here; clippings from articles around May’s successes, certificates from Max’s tournaments, photos of their children with friends they’d made on their journey, and chronological images of Caroline as her stomach had grown.
They soon came to pictures of a small, wrinkly baby with a wide, screaming mouth. He morphed into a toddler, freckles across his nose and shoulders, with a silly grin and a big heart. Softened by the sight, Caroline lolled her head against her husband's shoulder, her eyes wet.
“Look at what we made,” Caroline murmured. Their home of the past two decades was riddled with boxes brimming with the physicality of the life they had built. Their two eldest children were out in the world, conquering it. Their youngest was in his room, young enough to be by their side but old enough to pack his own belongings together, proud of his ownership of them. Norman swallowed thickly. “Packing up like this really makes you take stock, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” Norman replied in a low voice, turning a page. A final picture of three beaming humans. A woman with brown hair in a red bow, dreams of ribbons and travel in her eyes. A man with glasses that glinted as he aspired to overtake his father and become something even greater than his origins. A fresh-faced child bundled between them, soft in heart and full of endless, untold potential for more, balanced on his sister’s hip and grabbing at his brother’s hair. “I think we’ve done alright.”
Caroline nodded, reaching forward to wipe her husband's tears away from the picture in the album. “I think you might be right.”