Thanks to Fran, Dani, Ariel, and Gemma for everything.
It comes on a random Tuesday morning in the middle of summer.
The plan.
Or the beginning of one.
I don't know specifics or details - just a vision that catches me off guard as I'm reorganizing our things in the bedroom closet.
The closet is lined with shelves, with clothes folded, and dresses hanging with meticulous precision. Our shoes are lined on the back wall, telling stories of where we've been over our years together. Some carry happy memories, and for a moment, I can remember those times - but it's short-lived. I spy a wedged sandal I wore in Greece, and I'm reminded of the broken glass left behind after we had argued about who remembers what. Beautiful country with painful memories associated with it.
There's one specific part of the closet, top shelf in the back corner, that holds a medium-sized white plastic box. It's our proverbial junk drawer, full of various items that really have no place to go but hold some sentimental value.
At this point, since there is nothing sentimental between these walls anymore, I could probably throw it away, and neither of us would notice.
Or care.
With that in mind, I hang up the last of one of my favorite winter sweaters and place it in its spot on the rod, and stand on tiptoes to reach the white box of long-ago memories.
As soon as I open the box, it's there. The plan - or at least the beginning of one.
It's just a small wooden box.
We had gotten it, this small recipe box, as a wedding present and never used it, but not wanting to toss it out in case we ever did decide to, we threw it into our junk drawer and thought nothing of it since.
Until now.
Now, as I hold it in front of my eyes, turning it around to examine the workings of it, I realize this could be, will be, of great use to me.
It's almost the same color as the mulch surrounding the butterfly bush outside, the place where Alice and I meet every afternoon on her walk to discuss our plants.
He doesn't understand how we can talk about plants and bushes and flowers each day, but he can at least see over surveillance that it's true.
Alice and I point and crouch, ooh and ahh over things he doesn't care for, things he doesn't care to ask me about.
God forbid he ever takes an interest in something I love.
Today I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful he never takes a minute to look at the butterfly bushes lining the front of our yard - if he did, he would eventually find this little wooden recipe box nestled between the earth and the bottoms of the growth Alice and I look at every day.
He would find the box, and he would open it up to see a note written to Alice with Rose's address on it that I had scribbled while reorganizing the closet.
If he cared about me at all, he would read the note and kill me for daring to escape.
But I know he'll never find out.
In the junk drawer in the closet, I find a pen and paper, and I hastily scribble my sister's address, adrenaline kicking into my veins at the thought of somehow receiving a response from Rose through Alice.
This could be it.
Surveillance doesn't reach this back corner of the closet.
I hope this will work.
I put in another note for Rose specifically.
Help me.
There's no turning back now once she's started!
See you tomorrow!