by Justine Busto
Late Blooming Rita
Nothing was useless to Aunt Rita. When a light bulb sputtered out, it went in a box, along with wool socks, key chains, balls of twine, insurance company calendars, seeds bundled in used envelopes, and hotel soap. Sometimes she’d tuck a ten inside. Scotch-tape the box shut, covering every seam and edge. Then add it to her ‘gift closet’. Every visit, you got a gift. Children received little boxes of little things: bubble gum, buttons, bottle caps, Avon perfume samples, feathers, and pennies. Sometimes a dollar bill, rolled up like a cigarette. Her favorite box for kids was a red and white Marlboro hard pack. It took endless minutes to claw and peel away the tape. My fingers would be tobacco scented the rest of the day.
By the time I knew her, Aunt Rita was long retired from nursing. She wore a rotation of three shapeless flowered dresses, Hush Puppy flats and knee-high pantyhose, rolled down to her ankles, rolled up if she was going to the store. She spent most of her time in the garden, where marigolds lounged in bathtubs, sprouted from old paint cans and protected tomato plants in summer. She taught me to pinch off a bloom and rub the petals on my arms against mosquitoes. All her neighbors got envelopes of seeds. Through their cellophane windows you could see the shriveled deadheads waiting to spring. She’d say, “Honey, please the bees and plant some o’ these,” laughing and coughing as she pressed an envelope into a hand.
Her house was spotless. She sealed old lady clutter in empty shoe boxes, L’Eggs eggs, and oatmeal cartons, then wedged them in ‘the gift closet’ with the skill of a stone mason. One time, after I’d labored to open a red and white pack, a five, a whole five-dollar bill unfurled. Along with pencil stubs, restaurant mints, marbles, and Barbie shoes. I asked Aunt Rita why she shut money away in a closet. (My parents had just opened a savings account for me. I liked filling out those rows in that blue vinyl ledger book.) Rita exhaled a wheezy cackle and replied, “Little bees like money, Honey.”
I was fourteen when she died, late in the afternoon on her sofa. I wondered what would happen with the stockpile of gifts. I’d recently graduated from the Marlboros. The last gift she gave me was an egg carton. The pale blue cups held a tiny jade elephant, neon shoelaces, Tangee tangerine lipstick, one gold earring, sugar packets, a credit card with the numbers 1234 5678 91000, and marigold seeds, of course. Was there a message in that egg carton? I can see Rita’s shining eyes and her grin turning down as she gave it.
My dad and his brother, Edgar, were in charge of Rita’s estate. One evening, they were sitting around the kitchen table with my mother, discussing what to do about her house. I sat in the living room armchair, ears tilted toward the kitchen, reading my Introduction to Poetry for English class. Uncle Edgar said, “The easy way to deal with all those boxes is the dumpster.”
“Oh no,” my mother chimed. “That’s not what Rita would have wanted.”
“And what about . . . you know, the unpredictable nature of the contents?” said Dad. There’d been a diamond ring once. And I recall that my father got a scissor-like medical device, with a pincer on the end. He found it useful for making small repairs and retrieving things caught in crevices. Later generations found it useful as a roach clip. And there was the money. A chair scraped the floor. Mom came out to the living room, shooing me to bed. I didn’t find out the fate of those gifts in ‘the closet’ until December.
They held a gathering at Rita’s house for family and her friends from Presbyterian Hospital, and the apartments next door. Uncle Edgar dressed as Santa. Three sacks of packages slumped in the corner of the living room. There were plates of cookies on a card table. Adults drank spiked punch as they sat on folding chairs. Kids on the floor with paper cups of juice. I snuck some punch while I was serving. Then Uncle Edgar, his Santa beard pulled down to his chin, started taking gifts out of a sack, handing them to Mom and Dad to distribute. “These are from our dearly departed Rita. We have no idea what’s inside.”
With a half-submerged smile, my mother held each package in two hands as she gave a bow, saying “Take this, in remembrance of her.” The punch kicked in. Tales of Rita started flowing. When everyone had three or four gifts, the thwaap and crackle of tape ripping from cardboard started. Out came Go Fish cards, eight-track tapes of Elvis, skeleton keys, shot glasses, dream catchers, Rita’s name tag from the hospital, silver dollars, pop tops, and shower caps. I remember groans and belly laughs. Someone got a gift they’d given to Rita long before. Kids danced around with matchbox cars and mummified tootsie rolls. One lady yelped when a platinum charm bracelet appeared in an envelope of seeds.
Could you read all those packages as stories? Each containing a little hook. The unexpected bounty of the everyday, put in order. Years later I count a stash of pesos in a L’Eggs egg. I read her Sharpie scribbles on a coffee can of nails. In my garden, bees float above the saffron pom-poms of her marigolds.
Author Justine Busto helps first generation students write college application essays with the non-profit GenOne Charlotte, in North Carolina. A member of Authors Lab at the Charlotte Center for the Literary Arts, she’s writing a novel-in-stories. Find her in The Write Launch, Prime Number Magazine, Litmosphere, and at justinebusto.com
Artist Kevin Bodniza, a self-taught artist born in South Florida, has always approached art instinctually, creating without formal training. Using collage as his medium, he constructs textured worlds that reflect the chaos and beauty of life. His work is raw and unapologetic, evoking emotions that range from joy to discomfort. In 2024, Kevin held his first solo exhibition at his studio in Miami Shores.
Gulf Stream Magazine 