“Yeah. I never met her but William talked about her a lot. More when it was just us two. I think, he was worried it would upset Sanders.”
I frowned.
“What?” he asked me.
“Sanders just made it seem like his dad was okay or maybe not okay after his mom died, but that he handled it well.”
Skip chewed his lip thoughtfully. “William? Yeah, I don’t think he liked for Sanders to see his pain. I think he was so worried what losing his mom might do to Sanders that William fought to be the best dad and keep all that hurt at bay. But he never stopped loving Eleanor. He talked about her all the time.”
“I wonder if Sanders knows this …” I said out loud but was thinking it mostly to myself. It didn’t match the image of the man Sanders had built for me of his father. Would it help if Sanders knew how much his dad had been actually hurting?
“It was why they moved back to America. William couldn’t handle being in Australia. He said it was too painful.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Sanders told me he got a job out in Denver and wanted to be closer to his family,” I told Skip.
Skip digested this information. “I guess in part. He needed family to help raise Sanders. But mostly it was because he missed her.”
“Sanders doesn’t know this,” I realized. It explained why he felt the need to always be the life of the party. The strong one. Although while it did explain a lot, it didn’t excuse his actions. Sanders needed to heal. He needed help that Skip and I couldn’t give him. We would be there for him and love him as best we could, but he was the one who needed to want to change.
We fell quiet again. Eventually, he said, “It’s not that I don’t like it in Green Valley. I actually think it would be great to move here. For a few reasons. But I have a life in Denver and he does too—”
“And he needs to fix some things.”
“He does,” Skip finished. “He needs to face the music.”
I realized that I might not ever see Sanders again. Wasn’t that what I wanted? Maintaining control over my life had always been so important. I stared into the final sliver of light before it evaporated into dusk. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore.
Sanders
The boxes stared at me for over a week. Not that time mattered. Not that anything mattered. I was alone. My best friend was mad at me. The love of my life pushed me away. Yeah. I said that.
LOVE OF MY LIFE.
I glared at the boxes. The stack of old and worn ones. The stack of new and freshly taped ones. All of them sat staring at me, silently judging, waiting for me to make progress, from the corner of the downtown Denver loft I shared with Skip. The loft I used to share. The day he came back from Green Valley, he told me he was moving out.
I was growing to hate those boxes and everything they represented. A daunting task was ahead of me but I would open them. I would deal with my father’s death once and for all. I would be okay. I had already scheduled my first therapy session for next week. I needed to learn how to stop running and start processing the deep pain the loss of both parents has left in me, no matter how I tried to hide it.
With a final bracing breath, I stepped toward the boxes of Dad’s stuff. My hands shook as I opened the first few things. The first boxes contained old clothes that could be donated or thrown away and a few trinkets I would hold on to. I even found a few old newspapers that had featured about Outside the Box. Then came the pictures. Lots of pictures. Pictures that caused a pain to shoot into my chest with such sudden force, it felt splintered and shattered, like a wrecking ball hitting a windshield.
I had no idea he had all of these. Mom and Dad. Dad holding me on his shoulders with the western coast of Perth behind us. The three of us grinning like fools at the camera. Another of Skip and me as non-smiling teens.
Pictures from a time I would never get back. Pictures of the pure, innocent love a child has for a parent that I would never feel again. Getting older was so hard. Growing up, you never knew you were living in the best moments until you looked back. Or maybe it was looking back on them through the lens of your current life that made them the best. The longing for something I could never have back hurt so physically, I thought I might never take a full breath again.
I loosed a shuddering sigh and sat back.
There was one last box. A small cigar box, completely worn on the edges so the cardboard layers showed. It was wrapped in dry-rotting rubber bands that crumbled away as it opened.
“What’s this?” I asked the empty room.
Inside there were letters in dozens of unsealed envelopes simply addressed to “Eleanor.” They weren’t worn but they were yellowed with age.
I slowly unfold the first one, holding it with reverence that I instinctively understood it deserved.
The date at the top of letter was exactly one month after my mom died. Her birthday.
My hands shook as I read the first one.
Eleanor,
Happy Birthday, wherever you are. I never really put a lot of thought into the afterlife but now I pray every night for a place where I will hold you again. I miss you so much. Every morning I wake up and I have an instant where I wish I dreamt everything. Then I remember the truth and I don’t think I
