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“Hey, Derek?” Charles called over the phone. “If you are going down to Florida, Mary wants you to take some boxes to Anne.”
“Why?” he asked, confused. “It’s not as if Anne won’t be back.”
“I know, I know,” Charles replied. “But this box seems to be important and Mary claims Anne wants it shipped down there, but if you are going down there with your sister and her husband, then it’ll be cheaper if you take it.”
“We’re flying,” Derek interjected.
“It’s not a large box. Just come over and check it out. I think you can put it in your carry on. I doubt that Anne actually wants the whole box, just what is in the box.”
“Fine,” Derek sighed. Looking at his half-packed suitcase and carry-on bag, he shook his head. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“You don’t have to rush,” Charles insisted.
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Turning towards Etta as he disconnected, Charles gave her the look that he’d been holding back since Etta had made her request. “Now, why did I just lie to Derek?”
Releasing a sigh, Etta admitted to what she had overheard in the car. “I also went into Anne’s room after she left,” she confessed. “There was a sketchbook on her desk.”
“You looked through Anne’s stuff?”
“I always did like looking at her sketches,” Etta stated. “I went up there looking for a skirt. Anne has some of the best skirts, but she never wears them anymore, except for her student teaching placements.” Before Charles could scold her, she added, “I did ask Anne first if I could borrow a skirt. I even kept the text message as proof. She told me I could as long as I cleaned it. So, I went up there and the sketchbook was on her desk and my curiosity got the better of me. I started flipping through it, recognizing scenes from North Carolina, but not the North Carolina we visited. At least not exactly. The boardwalks were the same, but things like beach chairs and houses and other things were off.”
Shaking her head, Etta continued to confess, leading Charles upstairs as she did so. “And then I noticed that there were drawings of Derek. It wasn’t just one or two, but he started appearing on every other page. There were still her usual scenes, but Derek dominated a bulk of those scenes. It went from scenes of families playing on the beach, or beach grass and sand dunes, to Derek on picnic tables and on the boardwalk,” she described as they entered Anne’s room.
Going for the book that she had placed in a box, she opened it up. “See!” she exclaimed, holding up the book. “But the sketches of Derek. They are different,” Etta pointed out, quickly flipping through the book to a certain page. “Like this one. You can tell that she was capturing him during an interesting conversation. You can almost see the breeze ruffling his hair, his hands in motion as he’s gesturing about something. We’ve seen him doing this as he’s talking about history. But she even got his freckles and his facial expression down to the tiniest detail.”
Taking the book from her hands, Charles studied the image, his brow furrowed. Flipping to the front cover, he nodded his head in resignation. “See the dates. She drew these that summer before our Senior year of high school when she met her long-distance boyfriend.”
“See!” Etta exclaimed, bouncing on her feet. “This confirms my suspicions!”
“But they broke up!” Charles exclaimed. Looking towards the door, he kept waiting for Mary to pop her head in wondering what they were doing.
“You yourself said that Anne was eighteen when Derek proposed. She had just graduated high school and he was being shipped out. They weren’t ready yet.”
Charles, feeling the weight of everything pressing down on him, sighed. “If you are right...”
“I am right,” Etta insisted, interrupting her brother.
“But,” he intercepted, putting the book on top of Anne’s bed and starting to leave the room, “just because they were together once doesn’t mean they want to be now.”
“I think,” she whispered, “they would have already been together if it wasn’t for Isa.”
He looked at her curiously. “What do you mean?”
“She kept throwing herself at him. Everybody assumed that they were a couple, even though there was never any official or unofficial announcement. There was no handholding or getting caught kissing anywhere. And then she had her accident and it was just assumed even more. Anne and Derek didn’t have a chance to figure it out and when they started to...”
“Isa was her former impulsive self.”
“Exactly!”
“Fine, find a small box and put the sketchbook and a few other things Anne might like to have in it.” At the doorway, he added, “And be quick about it. He’ll be here in ten minutes.”
Scanning the room, Etta threw a well-read copy of a Jane Austen novel into the box, another sketchbook that had barely been used – placed underneath the one they wanted Derek to get curious about – and Anne’s art pencils, along with some other random things that Etta just happened to get her hands on.
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“Why is Derek coming over?”
“You want him to take that box of Anne’s to her,” Charles answered his wife.
“I do?” Mary asked, her brow bunched in confusion.
“Yes,” he drew out. “You told me yesterday to call him and tell him. I just got busy with my class, but I called him today,” Charles had no problem lying through his teeth.
If anybody knew how often he lied to his wife they would not be surprised at the ease he was able to manipulate her.
“I did?”
“Yes.”
Narrowing her eyes, Mary struggled to remember that conversation. “Are you sure that I did?”
“Yes,” he sighed. “You were playing with the boys at the time. Or maybe changing Baby Walter’s diaper.” He didn’t even bother to call him Baby Henry as was his preference.
Looking at him curiously thanks to his slip, Mary pursed her lips. “You never call him Baby Walter,” she finally stated.
“Well, you do change his diapers. Although, as often as your father sees the kids, I’m surprised you are so insistent on calling him Baby Walter.” He pulled out the discussion they frequently had over the baby’s name. “But I’m tired of arguing over which grandfather gets the honor of our son’s name, even though I think my father would be more generous if he heard the baby called Henry more often.”
Mary fell silent as Charles succeeded in what he was attempting to do: distract Mary from the request that she had not even made.
“Anyway, Derek should be here in about five minutes,” he announced right as Etta slipped off of the stairs and back into the room. Mary hadn’t even noticed that Etta had left the room with Charles twenty minutes before.
“Oh,” she exclaimed. “Derek is coming over? Is he coming over for that box Mary requested that he take down to Anne since he’s going to Florida?”
Nodding his head, Charles didn’t know if Etta was subtle enough with her comments. “Yes, he is.”
“Did I really make that request?” Mary asked, her eyes wrinkling in thought.
“Yes,” Etta confirmed. “You were changing the baby’s diaper and I was keeping Little Charles entertained so that he wouldn’t climb all over you.”
“Huh,” she mumbled. “If you two remember me asking that, I’ll believe you.” Turning to look at the baby, she asked, “Do you really think your father would be happier if we called the baby Henry instead of Walter?”
The siblings knew what Mary really meant. It was common knowledge that she kept complaining about the refrigerator and had been hinting for a new oven as well. It didn’t matter that she rarely cooked, or that she technically had money of her own that she could use to buy either appliance.
“I think he would be thrilled!” Charles commented nonchalantly as Derek knocked on the front door.
He had taken to knocking since he never knew if one of the boys was taking a nap and he didn’t want to wake either of them up. It had happened once before and he swore never again. The memory of Anne trying to calm down two crying boys with no help from the children’s parents stuck with him.
“Derek!” Etta greeted him, a wide - and uncharacteristic - grin on her face. “How are you doing?”
Looking warily at the three people staring at him, he cautiously grinned at them, “I’m good. How’s your class, Charles?”
“Just fine,” he grinned back. “Etta can show you where the box is.”
“It isn’t that heavy,” she told them. “I can bring it down.”
“No,” Derek interrupted them, shaking his head. “I can get it. It’s not a problem. I can’t stay very long. Not if I need to figure out how to pack these things as well as the rest of my stuff.”
“It’s only a few things. A sketchbook or two, her drawing pencils...”
Interrupting Etta, he asked, “Why would Anne forget her drawing pencils?”
“I think her father was pressuring her to go down there,” Charles replied quickly. “She seemed to pack her stuff up quickly. Probably just forgot them.”
Nodding his head, Derek started to climb the stairs.
Mary, focusing on Baby Henry, didn’t notice the looks of relief on her husband and sister-in-law’s faces.
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He hadn’t been in Anne’s room that often. Maybe once or twice. He never expected to be tasked with taking something to her. As light as that box was, the Musgraves could just as easily pack it up and had it shipped through the post office.
Looking down into the box, he recognized the blue cover. Most of the sketchbooks he had recently seen Anne drawing in had been black, but this one... this book was different. This book, with it’s AE stamped in gold on the corner, was the sketchbook he had gifted her early in their relationship. He could still remember seeing her running her fingers over the blank pages with a look of bliss crossing over her face.
Pulling the book out of the box, he ran his fingers over the well-worn corner. It was obvious that Anne had run her own fingers over the personalized stamped initials until the gold letters had almost lost their finish. There was more of an impression than anything else.
Holding the book open, he let it fall open instead of picking a random page. Staring up at him was a much younger version of himself. He could remember that day. Anne had been sketching him as they discussed the differences between book and film and why things couldn’t easily be translated from one media to the other.
On another page, he was holding a melting ice cream cone.
There was the beach volleyball game that he had joined and she had remained in her chair, sketching out the scene as he played.
A sketch of him down on one knee with a ring box in hand.
Placing the book back in the box, Derek picked it up and carried it down the stairs. He’d wonder why she wanted that particular sketchbook with her later. He could understand the empty book and her art supplies.
But that old sketchbook merely held memories he thought she had wanted to forget. Memories he had tried to forget, but couldn’t.
It wasn’t until he was in the car that he recognized the other sketchbook and the art pencils.
