MEMORABILIA

He had never said exactly why he'd kept them, and she'd never asked.  All she knew was that the little warped lumps of metal were not appropriate for the living room.  "God, do we really need to make Christmas dinner even more awkward?"  She'd meant it as a joke.  And neither of them laughed.  Because they did make for a rather uncomfortable Christmas dinner.  "Say Mr. Lewis, what're these little pieces of metal up on the mantle?"  "Well Ryan, those are the slugs that nearly killed me four years ago."  No, enough of that.  Eventually she wore him down, and he moved them to the windowsill in the back stairwell.  Now rather than everybody seeing them lined up next to the baby pictures, only she had that privilege.  So every time she'd go down to the basement to switch out the laundry or get something from the big freezer, her eyes went straight to the three bullets that had nearly made a widow of her.  And then every time she came up from that basement, she'd hunt down her husband and give him a little kiss or a quick squeeze.  It was some years later when he was gone and she was on her way to join him that it struck her.  Those years of little kisses and quick squeezes were exactly why he had kept those bullets.