Forgotten Boxes (8 page)
Authors: Becki Willis
“Well, I, uh…”
“I know. You like to think of yourself as just an average company
president, doing what he has to do to make his company a success. But you go above
and beyond, Harry. Above and beyond. Don’t think that every one of us here at Kingdom
Parcel doesn’t appreciate it, because we do. Hell, you heard the worker bees out
there. They love you. We all do.” Pascal Galano raised his near-empty snifter for
one last toast. “Here’s to you, President Tillman.”
After that, Harry sloshed his way home, not even bothering to
stop by Big G’s. He had to break the news to Nell that they wouldn’t make it home
again this year.
For the first time in his life, it seemed that Harry Tillman
was too successful for his own good.
The party was due to start in two hours, and the package still
had not arrived. Rita Anderson threw one last furtive glance out the kitchen window
before huffing out a declaration. “Okay, that’s it. Time for Plan B.”
Seated at the table, Joe continued blowing into the belly of
a balloon, stretching the yellow latex to capacity. His cheeks bulged and his whole
face turned red, but this was the last of them. He pinched the neck of the balloon,
gave it a twist, and tied the end into a knot. Then he batted the yellow ball out
of his way and turned his attention to his wife.
“Which is?”
“One of us runs into town and finds another kitchen play set,
while the other one stays here and finishes decorating, frosts the cake, and greets
early guests. And, gets Ashley bathed and dressed.”
Joe offered one of his lop-sided grins. After eight years of
marriage, it still melted Rita’s heart. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take the coward’s
way out and go into town. There’s no way I can do all that other stuff. You’re the
one with the super powers, not me.”
“It may take a super power to find another kitchen set,” his
wife warned. “Those things are the hottest toy on the market right now. Make sure
you get the one with the burner that glows red and the mixer that makes a little
whirring sound.”
“Yes, dear.” He stood from the table and went to collect his
coat and hat.
“That’s why I ordered it early from Montgomery Ward. I don’t
understand what happened to it.” Rita continued to fret as she assembled ingredients
for the cake frosting. “I called and they assured me it shipped out over a week
ago.”
“How was it shipped? Did you call them?”
“It was coming through some company I never heard of.” She spoke
over her shoulder as she turned on the mixer. “I called the number they gave me,
but it just rang and rang.”
Joe paused as he wrapped a scarf around his neck. After last
night’s snowfall, the roads were going to be a mess. He wasn’t taking any chances
on being stuck out in the elements without the proper attire. “It wasn’t that new
Kingdom Parcel, was it?” he asked with a frown.
“Who?”
He spoke louder, over the racket of metal blades clinking against
the glass bowl. “You know, that new startup company whose driver was found dead
earlier this week inside his truck. Suicide. Turns out the guy was not only the
driver, but president of the company, so you know they must have been having money
troubles. Why else would a president of a company be driving a delivery truck?”
“I hadn’t heard. I wonder if that’s where our package is?”
“Even if it was on the truck, they’ll probably hang onto it for
evidence. I’ll just run out and get a replacement. If the package ever does show
up, we’ll donate it to the church auction or some sort of charity.” Joe dipped his
finger into the creamy blend of butter and sugar and swiped it across his tongue.
“Hmmm. Can’t wait for the whole cake.”
“Better move that finger or you’ll be pulling back a stub!” Rita
laughed, elbowing her husband out of the way.
He still managed to brush a kiss across her cheek. “I’ll stop
by the den and give Ashley a kiss, too. That little girl is so excited about her
birthday, I may have to pry her down off the walls.”
“It’s not every day our little princess turns six.” Rita dribbled
in vanilla extract as she issued a last reminder. “Make sure the kitchen comes with
a mixer. There’s another brand that doesn’t have it, so be sure you get the right
one.”
Joe placed his hand over his heart and gave a solemn vow. “I’ll
come back with the right one, or I won’t come back at all.”
“I may hold you to that, Mister!”
He merely offered another lop-sided grin, saluted in farewell,
and went in search of the birthday girl.
***
“I have no idea what’s taking Joe so long.”
Rita’s tone was frustrated as she balanced the cake in one hand,
candles and a lighter in the other, and wove her way through a dozen children to
the dining room table. She reached her destination and expertly slid the cake onto
the center of the pink cloth. As she positioned six candles amid the plastic miniature
princess dolls, she muttered, “He’s been gone almost four hours. The kids are getting
restless and if we don’t cut the cake soon, half of them will have to go home without
getting any. You can’t have a birthday party without cake! I say we go on and cut
it.”
“No, Mommy, we can’t cut it until Daddy gets home!” Ashley wailed,
her eyes filling with tears. Her friends crowded around the cake, oohing and aahing
over the frilly edges made of icing.
“But your friends have to leave soon, sweetheart,” Rita said,
adjusting the plastic tiara atop her daughter’s head. “We’ll wait another ten minutes,
and then we’ll cut the cake. I’m sure Daddy won’t mind.”
“But he said don’t eat the cake without him!”
“We won’t eat it all. We’ll save a big corner piece, just for
him.” She gave the children a few more minutes to examine the tabletop, then shooed
them away. “One more game of pin-the-tiara-on-the-princess, and then we’ll cut the
cake,” she told them. She motioned for her sister-in-law to start the game up again.
“That man better have a good excuse when he gets here!” Rita
huffed, placing her hands on her hips.
“Maybe he got hung up in that wreck,” one of the mothers suggested
in his defense. “We had to wait a good ten minutes while they cleared the road.”
A cold chunk of ice fell into Rita’s stomach. “What…What wreck?”
“The one out on Vermont 15. I couldn’t tell much about it, but
it looked nasty. There was a car turned upside down in the snowdrift. As flat as
it looked, no one crawled out of there without some major injuries. Gloria, you
came that way, didn’t you? Did you see it?”
Another woman bobbed her head, worry written across her face.
“I tried not to look. There were police everywhere and an ambulance, but I don’t
think the person made it out alive. I saw the coroner’s vehicle pulling up when
we went by.” She shuddered in dread. “That stretch of road is always so treacherous,
especially when it snows.”
Rita slipped away, her face pale. She knew. Deep in her heart,
she knew it was Joe.
Ten minutes later, her hands trembled as she lit the candles
on her little girl’s birthday cake. Rita’s voice cracked when she sang the words
and her eyes filled with tears. For Ashley’s sake, she pretended they were happy
tears. She pasted a smile on her face and handed out the cake to the chattering
children. When she dropped the second plate, she blamed slick fingers and fled to
the kitchen.
She was standing at the kitchen sink, shaking like a leaf, when
she saw the police car pull into the driveway.
TWELVE
The undelivered toy had haunted Charity’s mind for days, ever
since she glimpsed the contents beneath the tattered wrappings. Her overactive imagination
conjured up dozens of scenarios, but very few could give the ending a positive spin.
Almost every conclusion resulted in the disappointment of the intended child. Charity
had finally struck upon a scenario that suited her optimistic soul. Rita Anderson,
she concluded, ran a daycare, and the kitchen set was ordered as a backup for the
group. It was the only solution that brought Charity comfort, and the one she stubbornly
insisted on believing.
Now it was time to find out the truth.
Inexplicably nervous, Charity pulled the large box from the back
seat of her car and carried it up the unkempt path to the bungalow. In spite of
herself, her nose curled in distaste. Shabby chic was one thing, just plain shabby
was another.
The wooden structure was in sad need of a coat of paint. There
were hints of blue along some of the boards, but the color had long since faded
with time. Many of the boards were loose and rotted. The window nearest the front
door was missing a pane, sporting a piece of cardboard and excessive duct tape in
its stead. A Christmas wreath hung beside the door, even though it was months before
the holiday. Judging from the ragged appearance of the artificial pine and the thick
cobwebs woven among the faded and broken bulbs, Charity guessed the wreath was not
an effort of early celebration, but a sad reminder of happier days long past. The
electrical cord dangled like a dejected suitor, its power source long since gnawed
off by animal or rodent.
The house reminded her of Aunt Nell’s sad little cottage. Sorrow
lurked inside, seeping out onto the sagging porch where she stood. The image of
the bullet hole swam before her eyes, stirred by a cool breeze at her back.
Charity jerked in surprise. From the other side of the peephole
— which bore an odd resemblance to a bullet’s void, she discovered — an eye stared
at her. A bit needlessly, Charity rapped softly on the door.
After a significant pause, she heard the slide and tumble of
multiple locks. The door creaked open, revealing the woman on the other side. She
wore a pair of faded flannel pajamas topped by a ragged terry robe, the color as
faded and nondescript as the woman’s tired eyes.
“Rita Anderson?”
“Yeah, who wants to know?”
“I spoke with you on the phone earlier, Mrs. Anderson.” As an
afterthought, she inquired, “It is Mrs.?”
Pain flickered in her weary eyes. “It used to be.”
When the woman turned and walked away from the door, Charity
took it as an invitation to step inside.
Cigarette smoke had darkened the walls of the living room, smudging
it with a hazy film. The haze was almost tangible, clinging to the air and sucking
fresh life from every molecule. Charity coughed into her fist, her eyes already
stinging.
“What’s in the box?” Rita Anderson asked. She plopped down in
a threadbare armchair, puffing on the cigarette she had stashed in a nearby ashtray.
Charity hesitated. She wanted to talk to the woman, to hear the
story behind the forgotten box, but she had a bad feeling about this one. She instinctively
knew there was no tender love story waiting for her today. Did she really want to
know the truth?
Drawing in a deep breath and immediately coughing it back out,
Charity decided she had come too far to back out now.
“May I have a seat, Mrs. Anderson?”
“Suit yourself. But let me warn you right now, if you’re here
peddling vacuum cleaners or whatnot, I ain’t buying.”
“I’m not here to sell you anything, Mrs. Anderson. I’m actually
here to give you something.”
The woman eyed the package with suspicion. She returned her dim
gaze to Charity with a simple question. “Why?”
“Because it rightfully belongs to you,” Charity replied softly.
She dreaded the conversation to come.
Rita Anderson barked out a bitter laugh. “Since when did what’s
‘right’ have to do with anything? Tell me why you’re here or I’ll have to ask you
to leave.” Her voice was gruff, but lacked any real threat.
“Do you by chance recall a delivery company by the name of Kingdom
Parcel from back in the early 80s?”
Something flickered in the other woman’s eyes. Already pale,
her face lost all color. She looked back at the package with something akin to horror.
“My… My Joe mentioned them the day he… the day he…” Her hand
trembled as she set the cigarette aside and tented both hands over the mouth. She
scooted to the edge of her seat, perching there in possible flight. After two hesitant
tries, she reached out and touched the top of the box. She jerked away, as surely
as if she had been burned.
She raised tortured eyes to Charity’s. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
she whispered in dread.
Charity’s own eyes filled with tears. Her heart ached in compassion
for the other woman’s pain. All she could do was nod.
“But… But it’s been thirty-one years! H-h-how… Where… Wh-What’s
this about?”
Afraid the woman might become hysterical, Charity kept her voice
calm and soothing as she quickly responded. “I’m afraid I don’t have all the answers,
Mrs. Anderson. All I know is that not all of the packages were delivered that last
day of business. The driver was my uncle. My aunt’s husband, actually. She passed
away recently, and while I was cleaning out her estate, I discovered the undelivered
packages. This was among the forgotten boxes, Mrs. Anderson.” She gently pushed
the box closer to the ashen woman. “I am so sorry for the delay, Mrs. Anderson.
I know it’s a long time in coming, but I wanted you to have this.”
“You’re sorry?” the woman spat. “You’re
sorry
? That box
cost my husband his life!” She kicked at the offensive package, sending it toppling
onto its side. The sudden movement made Charity jump, but she bit back the gasp.
Rita Anderson had every right to be bitter.
“It was Ashley’s sixth birthday. I ordered it early, to make
sure I got the right one.” The anger in her voice faded. For Charity, the heartbreaking
sorrow that replaced it was even more difficult to hear. “It had the little whirly
sound on the mixer, and a burner that glowed red. It was all the rage at Christmas
and was just coming back in stock, right in time for her birthday.”
Rita Anderson reached out to tug the box into its upright position.
Repentant for her earlier actions, she patted the box with trembling hands as she
continued her tale. “It was March, right in the middle of mud season. They say it’s
good for the maple trees, but it’s a mess to drive in. Snow, thaw, snow some more.
It’s a mad cycle of freezing and unfreezing.” She was rambling, working her way
into the difficult story. “It had snowed again the night before her birthday. The
snowplows were out, pushing it from the roadways, but there’s a spot out on Vermont
15 … They never can seem to keep it cleared there. Anyway, it was almost time for
the party, and the main gift still had not arrived. I still had to frost the cake
and get the birthday girl ready, so Joe… Joe said he would go into town and find
another kitchen set.” She averted her face, staring off into the distance. “I was
standing there in the kitchen, looking out the window, when I saw the police pull
up. And I
knew
. I knew my Joe was dead.”
Even though she suspected the worst, the words still shocked
Charity. Tears streamed down her face as she put her hands to her mouth to hold
in a sob. “Oh, Mrs. Anderson, I am so, so sorry,” she whispered.
It took a moment for Rita Anderson to collect herself. When she
looked at Charity again, that same mask of dull indifference was back in her eyes.
“You have no idea what it’s like, telling your six-year-old daughter that her Daddy
won’t be coming home. Hell of a birthday gift, don’t you think? I tried to go on,
tried to be both a mother and father to her, but I was not much more than a kid
myself. I had Ashley when I was only fifteen. . . . Yeah, that’s right. I’m only
fifty-two, but I look at least ten years older. Don’t look at me like that. You
have no idea the hell I’ve been through these last thirty years.”
“I-I didn’t mean… How did you get by, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Rita picked the cigarette up again, settling back into her chair
and taking a deep draw. She blew it out in one long, thick cloud of bitterness.
“I sued the hell out of everyone I could think of. The state, the county, the carmaker,
the tire company. Hell, I even sued the people who painted those little yellow lines
on the highway. Turns out, they didn’t have the proper lane warnings, or so my lawyer
told me. Some of the lawsuits stuck, some of them were dead-ends. Most ended in
settlements, which was fine by me.” She puffed out another stream of brackishness.
“Got enough to pay off the house and the funeral, keep Ashley in clothes for the
next twelve years, and send her to a community college. I pick up odd jobs here
and there, enough to buy my cancer sticks and a loaf of bread.” She shrugged her
bony shoulders. “I manage.”
At a loss for words, Charity finally managed to ask, “And Ashley?”
“Ashley.” Simply by the way she said her daughter’s name, Charity
wished she had never asked. “Apparently nothing I did for the child was ever good
enough. She moved out the day she turned seventeen, claiming she was ‘emancipated’,
or some such nonsense. A community college wasn’t good enough. The little traitor
used my own lawyer against me, getting her hands on her trust money and moving away
to some college downstate. She calls on Christmas, but she refuses to come see me.
Claims the smoke is bad for the baby.” She gave another bitter laugh, waving her
cigarette in the air. “She had a little boy, named him Joe after her Daddy, but
she won’t let me see him. Now ain’t that a fine daughter for you?”
Eager to get away from the bitter woman, Charity stood to leave.
“I think I’ve taken up enough of your time, Mrs. Anderson. I
appreciate you seeing me and talking to me today.”
“Hell, I didn’t have anything better to do. Never have company
these days. If it weren’t for bill collectors, I might go for months without talking
to another soul.”
Charity avoided looking her in the eyes, lest she see the pity
in hers. “Again, I have no explanation for what happened all those years ago, but
I want you to know how sorry I am for your loss, Mrs. Anderson.”
Rita Anderson followed her to the door, surprising Charity when
her last words were almost appreciative. “It was a decent thing you did, bringing
the box by after all these years.”
“Maybe… Maybe you could give the set to little Joey,” Charity
suggested.
The other woman looked doubtful, but Charity thought she saw
a flicker of hope spring to life in her dull eyes. “Maybe.”
“Goodbye, Mrs. Anderson.”
Charity made it out to her car and around the corner before she
broke down in tears. Rita Anderson was the most pathetic woman she had ever known.
However, she cried for Ashley Anderson. On her sixth birthday, when her gift failed
to arrive, the little girl lost not only her father, but her mother as well.