Free The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen by Susin Nielsen

said, louder than I meant to. I was dying to get out of there. I’d shoved our clothes into the machine and added detergent, and I fumbled for a loonie in my pocket.
    “Excuse me, I was just telling
Henry
that he shouldn’t remove someone else’s clothes from one of the machines.”
    “Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Mr. Atapattu. “It can be very annoying when people don’t empty the machines promptly.”
    “True, but still, touching their clothes – it’s an invasion of privacy.”
    “But that is the price you pay for living in a building with shared laundry facilities,” Mr. Atapattu replied. “A little less privacy.”
    Karen crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “So you’re saying just because some of us can’t afford to live in a building with an ensuite laundry, we should have less privacy?”
    “You misinterpret my words. I simply mean that, when a large number of people have to use common facilities, rules must be bent to accommodate everyone, isn’t that right, Henry?”
    But I’d managed to get the machine started, and I was already halfway out the door. I could hear them arguing as I stood waiting for the elevator.
    “If you don’t want anyone else to touch your things, you should be here when your laundry is done.”
    “I was ten minutes late! So sue me!”
    I couldn’t take it any longer, so I walked up the stairs instead.
    Later, when it was time to flip our clothes into a dryer, I approached the laundry room like a sniper in Call of Duty 4. I poked my head in to make sure the coast was clear. It wasn’t. Karen was there, and she was posting a big handwritten sign over the washing machines that said PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE OTHER TENANTS’ CLOTHING . Then she picked up her hamper, which was full of dry clothes.
    I panicked. No way did I want to have to talk to her again about her
undergarments
, or anything else for thatmatter, so I hurried back down the corridor. But instead of going
right
toward the stairs, I went
left
toward the elevator, and it wasn’t till I was passing the storage lockers that I realized my mistake. The elevator would take forever to show up. Not only would Karen catch up to me, but we’d have to ride up in that cramped space
together
. With her brassieres!
    Then I remembered that the key to our storage locker was on my key ring. I quickly opened our unit and slipped inside. The lockers are basically just floor-to-ceiling metal cages, meaning anyone can see in, but I hid behind some boxes, and luckily Karen didn’t notice me as she passed.
    I meant to leave as soon as she was gone. But then I started reading the labels on the boxes: KITCHEN, EXTRA LINENS, PHOTO ALBUMS .
    JESSE & HENRY .
    I only meant to take a little peek. But before I knew it, I was going through every single item: our old ratty blankets (his was called Softie, mine was called Blankie); all of our report cards; the knitted blueberry hat Jesse wore as a baby, which was then handed down to me; some of our artwork, including a fire truck that Jesse had painted when he was six. He’d signed it STEVE . Suddenly I was laughing because I remembered that, for a month in first grade, he hadinsisted on being called Steve. We never knew why, but it became a favorite family story.
    Even our Lego drivers’ licenses were in there. I’d been seven and Jesse had been nine when we went on that trip – the trip of a lifetime, as far as we were concerned. Mom and Dad had scrimped and saved to take us to California for a week. We’d gone to the San Diego Zoo and to SeaWorld and, of course, to Legoland, where we drove Lego cars and got Lego drivers’ licenses.
    Two envelopes were in the box, one marked HENRY , one marked JESSE . Each of them held a lock of our hair from our first haircuts – Jesse’s dark brown, mine bright red. Holding Jesse’s hair sent a chill up my spine because, aside from what’s in the shoebox, I was holding all that’s left of him.
    And then, stupidly, I brought Softie up to