Page 118 of The Voice We Find

I didn’t know when Gabby joined me at the table, or what she said when she pulled the box toward her that day, but I do remember ripping it from her hands and stuffing the card back inside with a fury that scared us both. How dare this pastor reference a waiver and donate our parents’ possessions without the permission of their children. They’d already donated their lives to his cause—was that not enough?

“Don’t touch this,” I scolded my sister.

“Why, what is it?” Gabby asked, scrutinizing my lips because once again she’d taken out her hearing aids.

“Where are your aids?” I tapped my ear, but she ignored me and swiped for the pastor’s card. She got it on the first try and twisted away.

Chip’s hand clapped me on the back before I could get it back. “Dude, what’s up?”

“They donated their personal belongings is what’s up,” I growled as Gabby silently mouthed every word of the letter.

“Who did?” Chip asked.

“The church organization that killed my parents.”

My friend’s horrified expression at my bluntness was telling. “It was an accident that killed your parents, August. Not a church.”

But I was in no mood to debate semantics. I knew exactly who and what had killed my parents. And regrettably, I knew the why,as well.

“This is all true.” Gabby lowered the letter in her hands. “I donated my stuff, too. We all did. The people there have so many needs.”

“And you don’t?”

“Hey,” Chip said quietly. “I think you should probably take a walk—”

“I don’t need a walk. What I need is everybody to stop pretending that they chose this—that they willingly chose to become martyrs of the faith and leave their daughter as an orphan again. They never would have left Gabby behind.”

If Gabby caught all that, she didn’t react to it. Instead, she touched the box and looked up at me again. “You don’t want to see what’s in here?”

The lone tear that tracked her cheek was what cooled the fire in my lungs long enough for me to see this through her eyes. I didn’t want to see the contents—because I couldn’t. But I also couldn’t deny Gabby what she needed.

Our grief was different. Hers wasn’t stained by my shame.

I slid the box her way. “It’s all yours.”

She didn’t move.

I took an unsteady breath and tried again as soon as her eyes found mine. “You can open it and keep whatever’s inside, okay? It’s fine.”

She swiped a tear and nodded. But when she touched the box, it was to set the card inside and fold the two flaps into themselves. “I don’t want to open it without you. I’ll wait until you’re ready.”

I shook my head, trying to convince her otherwise. But even at fourteen years old, Gabby’s faith was a hundred times what mine had ever been.

____

And two and a half years later, my opinion of her hasn’t changed.

Gabby pushes the box toward me on our parents’ rug, and my fingers twitch as I release the flaps. I lift the card out and set it aside. Strangely, the surge of anger I experienced the first time doesn’t accompany it now.

Our parents’ scent is faint but still there. I reach into the box. There are only a few items in total. Our father’s slim-line New Testament he never traveled without, and the watch I bought him with my first big paycheck at the recording studio. It wasn’t a high-end brand, but it caught my eye due to its claims of being “the timepiece for every tradesman.” The ads had shown it being run over by a forklift, dropped from a high-rise, and even submerged in motor oil overnight. And still, it kept on ticking.

It’s ticking even now.

“I remember when he opened that from you on video chat,” Gabby says, sitting cross-legged on the floor. “I almost never saw him without it.”

I touch the simple titanium frame around the analog clock face and examine all the nicks and dings on the band. He wasn’t a smartwatch guy; he was too practical for the ever-changing technology. Something I’d ragged on him about for years.

I offer the watch to Gabby, but she shakes her head. “He’d want you to have it.”

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