I caught myself a few steps down with nothing more than a wrenched ankle. The box and its contents continued down the steps and hit the door at the bottom with a loud thud. I sucked in my breath and didn’t make a sound. I sat on that little step, light switched off, and waited. My ankle was a little tender but it could bear my weight.
I waited in abject darkness for Cora to come bounding along to investigate the noise. I felt sick and if I had any food left in my stomach, I might have thrown up right there. A bead of sweat trickled down under my collar and I could feel that the hairs along my neck were drenched. My breaths were shallow and made me lightheaded.
After sitting still for what felt like fifteen minutes I limped to the bottom and gathered the papers strewn about. It was laborious because I stopped every second or so and strained for any hint of sound. Getting back to my room with the box under my arm, hobbling on my sore ankle, moving along that narrow passageway was no small feat. My arms were scraped from the rough walls, every muscle was tense. I dropped the box in the living room and went to wash my hands. I felt dirty from being in Nick’s room that short time. How immaculate Cora managed to sit in there at all without boiling her whole body in a sink afterwards was beyond me.
I sat cross-legged and sorted through the papers one by one. Most were school papers, assignments from senior English class, Chemistry lab papers, scientific hypothesis. I read each in detail. I couldn’t help but think Nick touched this paper. Nick sat in one of these dreary rooms in this house and did this. Nick brought this report card home to Cora. Nick, Nick, Nick. There was a pile of papers around me when I had finished. I was engrossed in one of the last papers in the box when my phone rang. It brought me back to my surroundings with a start. I was irritated. It was an intrusion when I was trying concentrate. I hobbled to my purse and answered it.
“Hello?” my tone showed my annoyance.
“Hey, Mackenzie. How are things going?”
I sat down on the couch. “Samantha? How are you?” It was so good to hear her voice I forgot all about the box in front of me.
“Pretty good. So tell me, how is the mother-in-law?”
I laughed. “God, I have so much to tell you. Are you coming down here?”
“When are you coming home?” she asked rather than answer my question.
“That’s the question of the day, it seems.”
“And that means what?”
“I thought at first I’d stay for a few days. Then I thought it would be for a week, tops, now I’m not so sure.”
“Go on.”
“And I cannot leave without figuring out what Nick was talking about.” I stopped and took a sip of water. “And besides, other than you, what is it that I have to come back to?”
“Mackenzie, how about your job, your friends, your house, your family? I’ve been going by everyday and watering the plants and taking in the mail. You can’t just run away.”
“I’m not running away. Trust me. But I do need you to do me a favor.”
“I’m waiting to hear this one,” she laughed.
“I want you to go through Nick’s things.”
“Oh, no. I can’t clean out that mess alone. That’s not fair.”
“No Samantha, I’m not asking you to clean out his stuff. I’m going to do that when I get back. What I want you to do is go through his papers. Like the things in his desk. Look in the attic and see if there’s anything there. Oh and the garage too.”
“And what is it that I’m looking for in his desk, the attic and the garage?”
“What you’re looking for is anything from his past. From when he lived here. A journal, letters, cards. Oh and photographs, especially photographs. Just see what you can find.” I was swinging my leg back and forth waiting for an answer, but she was silent. “Hey, did you hear me?” I heard a distinct sucking sound on the other end of the line. “Are you smoking again?” I asked. She swore she gave it up but I knew she sneaked one here and there.
“Yeah, I heard you. Then what?” she said, blowing the smoke into the receiver.
“I’ll call you with the address.”
“I have a bad feeling about all of this, but I’ll do it. I’m showing a house tonight so I won’t get to it until tomorrow.”
I heaved a sigh of relief. “I owe you, Sam. Call me.”
I hung up and turned my attention back to the box at my feet. It was almost empty and I hadn’t learned anything except that Nick was better at Math than English. I sat again and peered inside. At the bottom was a group of crinkled papers all stuck together. At first I thought it was another English paper but when I opened them I saw that they were letters. I read them through once, all thirteen of them. Then I stood up and put everything else back in the box. I carried it to my bedroom and shoved it underneath the bed, out of view. With the letters still in hand I crawled into bed with a cool glass of water and read them again.
They were from his father. He had managed to secret the letters to Nick at school so Cora wouldn’t see them. Mr. Whitfield hadn’t seen his son in awhile.
In his letters he told Nick over and over that he loved him and that Nick could trust him. It seemed that he was trying to coax information from his son. Trust me, Nick, he’d written, I can’t take you away from there without enough information. Tell me the truth and let me help you he’d pleaded. His father didn’t specify any details about the information he was seeking. It was implied that they had had recent conversations about it. Only Nick, and maybe Cora, would understand what he was referring to. Whatever it was, his father became more desperate in his attempts to find out. He continued to press his son, in each letter, to tell him. Each letter was more demanding, more urgent, more adamant than the last. Whatever it was that he wanted to know, there was no indication Nick had ever given it to him. The letters ended without conclusion.
I shook the papers in frustration. It was like a story with no ending. They were all written within a period of six months, the last dated May 18th. No year was given. I tucked the letters into my purse. Tomorrow I would venture back upstairs to put that box back where it belonged.