We both laughed because while the other side of this small room also has a closet, there is nothing in there to organize. It houses some air conditioner ducts, and the only people who open that closet are AC guys when they come to do a repair, which thankfully doesn’t happen often.

There was no reason for me to open that door at all.

And yet, I found myself compelled to look inside that closet, maybe to ascertain that there really was no need to organize.

Reader, I opened the door.

And there, on top of the duct, was a small black shopping bag containing a small black box. Before I opened the box, I knew what was in there. Opening it just confirmed my hunch.

Nestled in the box was a pair of saltshakers.

In my kitchen, in one of the cabinets, I have an identical box, and it also contains saltshakers. Now in the storage room, I gently pried one of the shakers out of its foam bed. It was a glass sphere with a gold band around the center. But where the gold band on the set in my kitchen was studded with green and purple stones, this one was studded with yellow stones. And while the set in my kitchen had stoppers in both saltshakers, one of these was missing a stopper.

I knew exactly what had happened and why this set of saltshakers was sitting on top of an air conditioning vent in a room we hardly use, in a closet we never open.

What I felt less certain about was the story I’d been telling myself these last two years.

I had received these saltshakers as a gift, but kept forgetting to toivel them. Two years ago, I asked my older son to do it. I showed him the saltshakers, and told him the tiny stoppers at the bottom would have to come off.

“Be careful,” I told him. “You don’t want to lose them.”

About ten minutes later, he called. He had lost one of the stoppers. Had this been any old saltshaker, I would have told him to forget it, but these were different. Besides the sentimentality, they were also beautiful.

“I’m sorry,” I told him, “but you’re going to have to find that stopper.” I didn’t want a cheap silicone replacement, nor did I want a new set.

Two hours later, he came home triumphant, stopper in hand.

“How did you do it?” I asked him.

He had spent two hours sifting through the mikveh using a magnet, he told me. He fished out cutlery, strainers, and miscellaneous metal items. It was enough stuff, he said, to set up an entirely new kitchen. Finally, he found the small gold stopper.

I was proud of his resourcefulness, and also felt validated that I had stood my ground. After all, I had warned him before he left.

But now, standing in the storage room holding a saltshaker in my hand, I knew that I was missing a vital piece of the story. I was missing the ending.  He had obviously found the stopper — not at the bottom of the mikveh, but at the bottom of a new set of saltshakers. While I stitched the true ending of the story to the one I had in place, I felt guilt wash over me. Why didn’t he tell me he replaced the saltshakers? What kind of mother was I? Why had I been so insistent?

I called my husband and told him I found a set of saltshakers on top of the air-conditioning vents. I thought he’d echo my surprise, but he just laughed. Yes, he knew about the replacement. He had seen it on our son’s credit card statement, and covered the cost. When I told him how awful I felt, he said it was a lesson learned because he’d stood at the mikvah with a magnet for two hours trying to find the original stopper, and because our son really should have been more careful. As for why they were on top of the air-conditioning ducts, he wasn’t sure. Our son probably hid them, not wanting to throw them away.

The saltshakers are in my closet now. They’re on a shelf at eye level, where I can see them every day. It’s uncomfortable to look at this concrete reminder of a misstep. But at the same time, I tell myself I’ll do better next time.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 917)