A New Start

“Naota! There’s one last box in the truck!”
“Yeah, I got it!” The boy replied, shouting with little enthusiasm. He jogged past his mother, climbing into the back of the moving-truck. The box wasn’t large, but it was heavy enough. Naota carried it out of the truck to the house, “What’s in this? It weighs a ton.”
“I’m sure it doesn’t weigh that much. Here, just set it in the living room. We can unpack it together.”
“’Kay,” He was quick to put it down. Naota sat on the carpeted floor and peeled off the box’s packaging tape.
Hearing the ripping of cardboard, his mother shouted from the kitchen, “Hey! Don’t open it without me!” She ran to the living room, almost tripping, “We should open it together, Naota.” She grinned, trying to coax a smile from her son.
He looked away, “Why can’t we open it with Dad?”
Her smile slipped. “Naota,” she sighed, “This is our new start: a quiet, mountain side town. A new school, a new job, a new house! And it’s so spacious, we even have a basement and a second floor!”
She was trying to cheer him up, and he knew it.
She was also trying to avoid the subject. He knew that too.
“Let’s just take everything one step at a time,” she said with a wry smile “For now, we’ll unpack this box, and then you can help me make lunch, okay?”
…
We’ll talk about it later. For now, let’s just adjust and try to look toward the future.
…
He read it in his mother’s smile, her pain, her exhaustion, her heartbreak. He bit his tongue, “’Kay.”
She counted to three. Together, each grabbing one side of the lid, they opened the box, the mother with a cheerful countenance, and the son never dropping his stoic expression.