Page 56 of One Last Step

Now, we both can be at peace.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Claudia’s apartment is modest and minimally decorated.It’s very much the stereotypical apartment of a single police officer.I feel an urge to suggest that Claudia should look for a companion, but I quell it.Our relationship is still very young.I should save the advice for later.

“You can sit on the couch if you’d like,” she says.“I’ll bring the letter to you.”

My eyes widen.“Letter?”

“Yes.Mom wrote it before she died.She told me to bury it with her, but I didn’t.I’m glad I didn’t.You’ll see why in a moment.”

She leaves for her bedroom, and I lower myself slowly to the couch.My heart is pounding again.I don’t need to ask who this letter is for, and I’m not surprised when Claudia returns and hands me an envelope addressed to me.

My hands tremble as I open the envelope and pull out the sheets of paper folded inside.Claudia sits on an easy chair, close to me but with a respectful space between us.I glance at her and see an empathetic smile.She knows this will be an emotional moment for me.

I take a deep breath and read the final thoughts of my long-lost sister.

Mary,

This letter will never reach you, if you’re even still alive, but I hope you won’t mind if I talk to you as though it will.I never got to properly grow old, but I’ve always been ornery, and the one thing that hasn’t changed in me is my stubbornness.So, even though I’ll never see you again, I’ll act as though you’re sitting across from me, and I’m telling you the story of my life.

Well, it’s happening.My adventure is finally coming to an end.I’m a little irritated that I won’t make fifty.It’s a nice round number and a lot prettier than forty-nine, but oh well.I won’t tell if you won’t.

I love you.I think I’ll start with that.If youarealive, you probably think I don’t, and I don’t blame you, but you’re wrong.I do love you.You were the only sister I ever had, and you were a good one.You weren’t perfect, but neither was I.Considering our parents, it’s a miracle either of us made it to high school, so I think you did a pretty good job of protecting me.

Sorry, I’m a little scatter-brained.Claudia says it’s because of the medicine, but it’s not.It’s just that I have a lot to unpack and not much time, and my mind is throwing all of these thoughts and memories at me, so I’m having trouble figuring out what order to put them in.I was never as organized as you were, a fact you were very fond of reminding me.

Don’t take it too seriously if I poke some fun at you.I mean it with good intentions.It’s just that I can picture you here, and I can’t resist being an annoying younger sister one last time.

Anyway, I do love you.I wish I’d never left you.I wish I’d at least kept in contact with you.It would have been really fun to talk to you about all of my adventures, even if it was only through letters and maybe an occasional phone call.

But I didn’t.I really regret that.I kept putting it off because I was afraid of how you’d react, but that was so stupid of me.Even if we had a bit of a fight to get through, we would have reconciled.I know we would have, and it’s my fault that we didn’t.

I’ll leave it at that.It’s a crappy apology, I know, but if I fixate on the regret, I won’t write anything else, and I want to leave you with at least one good memory of me.

I hope that you think fondly of me wherever you are.I don't expect you to paint all our time together as rosy, but I hope that you remember the good better than I did.I'm afraid it's only now at the end of my life that I can look back and see how much good there was.There's a comfort in bitterness.It justifies one's anger and gives one something to fixate on other than fear.But it's a poisonous comfort.It leaches away the warmth and color in the world until all that is left is a cold and lifeless shell of who we once were.I held onto too much bitterness.I can only hope that you've escaped that trap.

Okay.That’s the intro.Choppy, like I warned you it would be, but it got the points across.Now comes the story.It’s a good one.I’ll say that much for it.I’m pretty proud of how entertaining it is, if nothing else.

I’ll start at the beginning.So I left Boston, which you know.

Oh God, I hope you don’t think I died.Damn it, I never thought about that.Here I am, selfish as always, more concerned with whether you think well of me than whether you might have spent the past twenty-eight years afraid that I fell to some horrible end.

Well, shit.I'll have to hope that you figured out eventually that I didn't die.I mean, you're smart, so I hope you'll figure it out.

Crap, that threw me off.Well, just in case, let me apologize for that too.I didn’t mean for you to think that I died.I really didn’t think things through, or I would have at least left a message behind to let you know that I was still alive.Boy, I really was short-sighted, wasn’t I?

Oy.Okay, let me try again.I need to get at least the first part of this story down on paper before I go to bed.

So, I left Boston and just went to California.I figured that was as far west as I could get hitchhiking, and I guess I kind of believed the hype of California being the land of sun and fun.I wanted to forget about everything serious and just mess around for a little while.

I’m sorry to say that I found California overrated.It’s got a lot going for it, but it’s not really that much different from anywhere else.If I had to say one thing for it, I suppose I would say that there’s more there to distract people from their lives.Maybe there’s something to be said for that.

That’s one important lesson I’ve learned.People and places are pretty much the same everywhere.Obviously that’s not completely true, or I wouldn’t believe so strongly that Geneva is the prettiest city on Earth, but for the purposes of this conversation, it’s true.Everyone’s fighting to be happy and fulfilled, and the way they go about it is, at the end of the day, pretty basic.Everyone needs a purpose, everyone needs a place, and everyone needs their people.

Hey, look at that.I alliterated.I even used the word alliterated right.I hope you’re proud of me for that.

Sorry, I told you I’d be scatter-brained.Where was I?

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