It's the sunniest of days, the type of day where your eyes actually hurt because it's so bright when you peak up through the branches. If you listen very carefully, you hear the quacking of ducks, the chirping of birds, the beating of wings against the water's surface, the rustling of leaves in the breeze, and the clarion-bell-like laughter of little children. All at the same time.
A very beautiful summer day, in other words.
The setting still retains the spectacular, simple beauty he remembers. Years have passed, yet it still looks much the same at pond's edge. The man, seated on the venerable log at water's edge where his mother and father often told him stories, looks up, and sees that the same trees, only taller, still shade the pond and the house with their canopies, lessening the heat of summer.
He smiles, and remembers the story of how the house was reconstructed, and what that story means to him. His father's insistence on having the nursery ready in time for his birth, for one. He recalls the story of his parents' wedding, and what his mother said that night when the stars were out. It's a story he'll treasure forever: the night before his own wedding, his father told him that this was the moment he truly was healed from the trauma of his past.
He thinks of other family stories, the ones rarely talked about in the happy home he grew up in. He holds the evidence of one such story in his hand-a letter he will finally read.
Trembling, he decides to not read the letter just yet. He realizes he should go back inside. His wife will be none too pleased at having to hold down the fort, he guesses. So back to the house he goes, gathering his courage. He passes by the porch swing. Oh if that swing could talk! It sways slightly in the summer breeze, as if acknowledging its role in the history of this house, this family, these families and these friends.
He goes back into this house that sits so quietly, the house once so full of life. He casts a glance at his own children in the field in front of the house, one quietly reading, the other rummaging through the grass looking for tiny blossoms to add to the daisy chain she's forming. There are other children behind the house, playing ball. He shakes his head; his children are so much like his parents.
The gathering in the front room his father built is quiet; he nods and his wife gives him her "I've got it" look. So he slowly ascends the stairs to the bedroom upstairs, still holding the letter.
It's just a note, really, not a letter, if he thinks about it.
A note, from a box stored deep in their bedroom closet. There are other notes and letters in this box, but there's something different about these. They were never sent. Never sent because she did not know where his dad was. He remembers her telling him, laughing, once, to only read them when she was gone from this earth.
Well now, that time has come. Teresa Lisbon Jane has just been laid to rest. It's hard to think of her as resting. Instead, he thinks of her in Heaven now, with all her loved ones, happy, guarding Heaven's gates in her chosen role of protector. His father, also gone, did not believe in an afterlife, but he has no doubt that the joke's on him and he is thoroughly enjoying teaching magic tricks to angel children. All so he can be with his beloved wife.
He was always his mother's son, he thinks.
The smile and peace this thought brings to him doesn't stop him from trembling as he oh-so-carefully opens the letter he's holding. He stares at the folded page, so utilitarian. So quaint even-handwritten on paper. A rarity these days.
He sighs, smoothes the letter, and reads. They all start the same way: To My Friend, U no hoo.
The letter is mundane yet full of longing. When he took the first letter, he was afraid it would reveal too much. Be inappropriate for a son to read. But as he looks through this letter, he begins to understand that these are companion pieces to the letters in a second box-his father's.
He turns to this other box. These letters were actually sent, from him-U no hoo-to her. He picks up another letter.
He places both boxes on their bed and sits at the edge, alternating his reading of the contents of the two boxes.
Reading them, his tears fall, for he knows the real people behind the words, the pure and simple longing being expressed.
A knock, and someone enters the room and taps him on the shoulder.
"Hey," he says, turning and pulling his visitor into a heartfelt hug.
The visitor, a woman, is hugely pregnant, and shares a teary grin with him. "What else did you find in the boxes?"
"Notes. Lots of notes," he answers. "Letters, really."
He hands her the one he's holding, and waits while she silently reads it.
"Mom and Dad sure loved each other," she finally says. "To go through what they did...Now that I'm a mom myself, I so admire them for making such a wonderful family for us." She rubs her back as she sits next to him on the bed. "I used to tell him that he'd ruined any chance of my finding a decent guy, because no one could compare to the way he treated Mom."
"Ha," he says, "It was worse for me, little sis."
His sister crinkles her nose at him, a mirror image of their mother. "How so?"
"Every girl saw how he treated mom, and that led to...certain expectations." He looks around the room, then laughs. "Can you imagine me building a house?"
She snorts, laughing with him, then grins with his father's smile. She always was daddy's girl.
She reaches into the first box-her mother's-and pulls out an envelope containing an irregularly shaped, hard object. She opens it; it contains an old-fashioned key. "Blue Bird Inn," it reads.
They both smile-they grew up hearing the story about how their mom was about to fly away to marry some other guy and their dad ran onto the plane. Whenever their mother needed to stress the importance of being true to one's self, she'd tell this story.
"We should really divide this stuff up," he suggests.
"One last one " she cajoles.
So he reaches back into the second box, the one with the letters his father sent. He pulls out an envelope lying at the bottom. It's worn, and more than a little dog-eared. He opens it and a birth certificate, folded, creases worn, falls out.
He shows it to his sister, the one he knows, the one who's alive. "Our sister."
Silence cloaks them. His sister reaches out to her brother and squeezes his hand. "I can't even imagine," she quietly says, rubbing the soon-to-be-born child she carries as she reads over the details.
A sudden series of childlike screams piques their interest. "Maybe we should send our better halves out there," the woman suggests with a wry grin.
He smiles at her through threatening tears. "I thought that was what they'd volunteered to do..."
"So hey, what should we do with this?" the woman asks, fingering the chain on her bosom, the chain containing "their"-her parents'-wedding ring and their grandmother's cross.
"You should keep it," the man answers.
"But it's not right, you should have something too. Should we split it up?"
He thinks for a moment. "Those two were always together. Doesn't seem right for them to be apart."
"You're right," she concedes. "Do you remember when mom told us how dad always wore the ring until the day he proposed?" She sighed. "I still think that's so romantic!"
Her brother laughs. "I think mom was a saint. I don't know any woman who would have let him get away with wearing another woman's ring." He looks over at the dresser. "Tell you what. I'll take their wedding rings," he points to the dresser.
The thought pleases her. "And when our kids grow up, I'm sure we can do what feels right. Maybe one of the kids will use mom's rock to propose!"
He agrees, nodding, and rubs her arm, fingering the gold circlet on her chain. "Do you think they're with him and Mom?" he wonders. "Our sister and her mother," he adds unnecessarily.
"I like to think so, don't you?"
He squeezed her arm. "C'mon, not-so-little-sister," he teases as he mimics her girth.
She laughs and fakes a punch as he helps her up.
"Let's go back downstairs; the guests are waiting for us."
The duo: man-of-the-family now, flanked by his pregnant sister, the new matriarch, slowly makes its way back downstairs. A brother and sister, on a day they'd never wanted to experience: their parents' wake.
As they near the front room, snippets of conversation waft by them on summer's breezes.
"Harder on her, I would think she was their baby, after all..."
"At least they were pretty old and went together..."
"Together, in death as in life..."
"I'm really going to miss them..."
"He was such a good uncle..."
"They say she carried a torch for him for years, even when he disappeared..."
"Her gun was so cool..."
"So sad...drunk driver...killed them both...after all they had been through," another guest murmurs.
The front door opens, and the bedlam of cousins and siblings breaks the quiet sea of murmurs. They join other children, the children of friends, the children of former coworkers and enjoy snacks, oblivious to the sadness of this day. Their grandparents, their great-aunt T and great-uncle Paddy, will come down the stairs any moment now, right? Like they always did.
In the midst of this, a brother and his sister stand, surrounded by their spouses and children and family and friends.
Friends and family offering comfort to the children and grandchildren of Patrick and Teresa.