His meandering thoughts of Margaret snapped like a twig when Alice tapped on his door. He knew that it was her from the light tap, tap, tap, that she always did. He hastily shoved the letter and photograph back into the drawer then called: ‘Come in.’
Alice stepped in and pushed the door closed behind her. He could tell that she was anxious about something; her eyes always gave her away. They were chestnut brown—just like his but more striking, somehow. He could always tell if he’d annoyed or upset her, just from a quick look into her eyes.
‘What’s up?’ he asked, drawing his knees to his chest.
‘You,’ she answered, sitting in the space where his feet had been.
‘Me?’
Alice ran her fingers through her thick curly hair and faced him. ‘I’ve got a plan,’ she said, taking a long, dramatic breath. ‘You come with me back to college—get yourself a job in the city someplace—until you figure out what it is that you want to do with your life. You can sleep on the floor in my room until you get yourself sorted out.’ She stood up and added: ‘Come on, I’ll help you pack.’
Jack reached out, grabbed her hand and pulled her back down beside him. ‘It’s real sweet of you, Ali, but no; I can’t.’
‘Why not?’ she said, her eyes conveying her disappointment.
‘I can’t just run away like that. I need to stay here and figure things out.’ He placed a hand in between her shoulder blades. ‘I’ll be okay—really. I’m twenty, for God’s sake!’
‘And what—you’re going to live here forever?’ she jibed.
‘Probably,’ Jack answered with a laugh.
‘What are you going to do tonight?’ Alice asked. ‘Come downstairs and watch M*A*S*H?’
‘I think I’ll pass.’
‘You mean you don’t want to hear Dad’s it-wasn’t-actually-like-that-in-Korea comments?’
‘Tempting, but no. I’ll read for a bit then get an early night.’
‘Me too—once I’ve finished packing.’ Alice stood and made for the door.
‘Thanks for coming in,’ Jack said.
‘I was serious, you know.’
She was serious, too; again, her eyes said so. He nodded and watched her leave. Then he lay back down, placing his hands behind his head, as his thoughts returned to his time in England with Margaret.
The next morning, the house was filled with mildly chaotic activity. The snow had stopped falling at some point in the night and the sun was pushing through the kitchen window, harsh and bright. Jack was sitting at the breakfast table, sipping coffee while his sister, mom and dad flapped around the place preparing to get Alice back to Boston. His dad was loading the car; Alice was finalising her packing and his mom was hauling yet another tray of cakes out of the oven.
Not for the first time that morning, Jack’s gaze had fallen onto the five storage boxes lined up neatly by the kitchen door. At first, when his dad had brought them up from the basement, Jack had presumed that they were going to Boston with Alice. But then his dad had revealed that they were the boxes of junk awaiting collection.
Several minutes later, after Jack had said goodbye to his sister, he took advantage of the opportunity of his mom waving them off to take a look inside the boxes.
He peered inside the first one—the only one labelled ‘private’ and removed a bundle of official-looking papers. Certificates and insurances, by the looks of things. He thumbed through the stack, pausing briefly with each new document. Why on earth his parents were getting rid of such important paperwork was a mystery. He continued flicking through tax and car records, stopping suddenly at an official-looking certificate. He caught sight of his dad’s name.
‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ his mom asked, suddenly appearing in the kitchen.
Jack quickly concertinaed the papers back together. ‘Are you sure you want to get rid of these? They seem pretty important, if you ask me.’
‘Oh my goodness!’ she said, snatching the papers and placing them back inside the box. She carried it to the other side of the room, muttering as she went. ‘Your dad—honestly.’
‘Do you want me to take it back down to the basement for you?’ Jack suggested, wanting to get another look at what he had just seen.
‘Oh, no—I’ll do that. But you could check the rest of the boxes for me—make sure your dad didn’t bring any others up that he shouldn’t have.’
Jack knelt beside the other boxes. As he removed the lids, he tried to recall what he had just seen among the official family paperwork. The isolated words that he had glimpsed before his mom had derailed his thoughts didn’t make any sense.
‘Are they the right ones?’ Velda asked.
Jack looked inside them. ‘Yeah, I think so,’ he answered, picking through an assortment of items: candlesticks, old picture frames and a selection of unsightly ornaments. Opening the final box, he asked, ‘What’s all this?’ He carefully withdrew the contents, setting them down on the kitchen floor. Medals. Bullets. A leather map case.
