Fausta Bronze Coins: Imperial Portraits and One More Place

Doria had packed the chest three times before her sister said there would be no room for Maro.

“There is room,” Doria said. “He can sit on it.”

“He cannot sit on it and hold the bedding and keep his feet out of the wheel.”

The cart stood outside their door. Vivia’s son was carrying bundles toward it, one under each arm. He was fourteen and had grown taller that winter, though Doria still thought of him as the child who had once hidden in her chest. Now the chest seemed to be taking his place.

They were leaving the town to live with Doria’s brother. Since Vivia’s husband died, the two sisters had used their savings to keep the house. The savings were nearly gone. Their brother had offered a room and work, but they had to reach him with what they could carry.

Doria pressed the folded cloth flat inside the chest. Her husband had made the chest. The lid no longer closed neatly, and a split ran beside one hinge. She had wrapped the bedding around that corner so it would not catch anyone’s sleeve.

“I can stay with the neighbor,” Maro said from the doorway.

Doria looked up. “For how long?”

“Until you send for me.”

His mother took one bundle from him. “We said we would go together.”

“I know.”

But he kept looking at the chest. Doria had said all morning how much they needed it. He had heard her.

“Let us finish loading,” she said. “Then we will see.”

The driver watched her turn the chest onto its narrow side. She pushed it toward the cart’s edge. He shook his head.

“It will move on the road.”

“We can tie it.”

“And what does the boy hold when it moves?”

Doria stopped pushing.

Vivia brought out the little purse for the journey. They had agreed on a payment with the driver, and that money had to stay separate from what they would need afterward. Doria emptied it onto the chest lid to count it again. She already knew there was not enough for a second trip.

One bronze lay face down. Maro turned it over, then back. On one side was a woman’s portrait. On the other, a standing woman held two small children.

“How does she carry both?” he asked.

“They are small,” Doria said.

“I used to be small.”

“You were never as small as you thought. You broke this hinge climbing out.”

“I did not break it.”

“You were sitting on the lid.”

He ran a finger along the split. “Then I can mend it when we get there.”

He spoke as if the chest was certain to go and he was not. Doria picked up the bronze. The tiny figures rested against the woman, one on either side. She put it with the other coins, ready for the driver.

“What do you want to take?” she asked Maro.

He glanced at his mother.

“Tell me,” Doria said.

“My blanket. The knife. And the board.”

The board had squares scratched into it. He and his father had played on it in the evenings. It lay beneath the chest, where Doria had slid it to stop the chest rocking.

She bent and pulled it free. The chest tipped onto its bad corner.

Vivia reached to steady it. Doria caught her wrist.

“Leave it.”

Her sister looked at her.

“We can carry the clothes in bundles,” Doria said.

“And where will we put them afterward?”

“In the room. Until we find something.”

Doria lifted the lid. She took out the cloth, then the dishes wrapped inside it. Each thing looked smaller alone. Soon the chest held only dust and a loose wooden peg that had fallen from its hinge.

Maro picked up the peg.

“You could take this.”

Doria almost laughed. “To remember a broken hinge?”

“To fit a new one.”

She put it in her purse, apart from the coins.

Outside, the driver moved the bundles and made a place behind his seat. Vivia climbed up first. Maro followed with his board pressed flat against his chest.

Doria paid the driver. Then she went back to close the empty chest. It took both hands to bring the lid down. She could leave it with the neighbor, who had offered to keep anything they could not carry. She had no promise that she would ever come back for it.

From the cart, Maro called, “There is room beside me.”

Doria left the chest in the doorway and went to take the place he had kept.