Page 116 of Almost Always

Dust bunnies greeted him and he slapped a hand over his mouth to hold back a scream. His father told him that monsters did not hide under his bed, but this wasn’thisbed so maybe there were monsters? With wide eyes, he stared at the weirdly shaped dust clouds and listened for Poppy. The footsteps moved past the bedroom, his voice fading as well.

“It’s only dust, not monsters,” he said to himself and blew against the fluffy things that looked like they were coming to eat him. Whimpering, he tried to scoot further away and bumped into something. With one last look at the things that weren’t monsters, he moved out from under the bed and took the object with him.

It was a shoebox that had a thick layer of dust turning the white to gray. He used the tip of his finger and made a face as he rubbed in the center where he saw some writing. A red skull with bones was drawn and below that his father’s name was written in block letters. He knew that the skull either meant dead or danger, but nobody would know if he looked inside the box. Right? Shaking it gently, he heard something move around and set it on the floor carefully. Scooting back on his knees in case a monster did jump out, Cal tipped the box open with one finger and waited. Nothing appeared, so he peered into the box and saw differently colored envelopes.

An address was written in the center and the right corners had numbers, but they weren’t in the right order. With the intention of rearranging them like he’d been taught at school, he picked them up one at a time. The address was for some place called Greenville and all the envelopes had the same name.

He mouthed the name and said it out loud, “Daisy Herowx?”

Shaking his head, he put everything back into the box and got to his feet. Poppy had hopefully stopped looking for him anyway, so he came out of the bedroom and hurried down the stairs. His great-grandparents were sitting on the couch in front of the television, but they were talking to each other and not watching. He always thought that was so silly.

“Nonna, I found something!” he said, holding out the shoebox with a grin.

“What is this?”

Poppy laughed. “You were hiding in your father’s old bedroom!”

“You’re not supposed to use that room, monello,” Nonna said, using one of her silly Italian nicknames. She opened the box with a small smile. “Oh, Abe, look at this.”

Poppy took the envelopes and they shared a smile. Callahan huffed and stomped his feet. “Tell me!”

His great-grandmother laughed and patted the space beside her on the couch. “These are letters your father wrote to his best friend.”

“Why didn’t he send them?”

“That is a question for your father,” Poppy said and opened a pink envelope. He pulled a piece of paper out and hummed as he read.

“What is it, my love?”

“I believe you were right, darlin’. Our grandson was madly in love with our Daisy girl.”

“Oh,” Nonna put a hand over her chest and smiled.

“Dad wrote love letters to agirl?” Callahan retched which made his grandparents laugh. “Gross.”

“One day, my topino, you will love someone so much you’ll write them letters too.”

He shook his head, making a mental note to never do that.Doesn’t Nonna know that girls are weird?His great-grandparents continued to swap letters, laughing and saying things he didn’t understand. But he could count and there were at least a hundred letters in the box. Maybe more.

When Nonna closed the box, he looked up at her. “Did she love my dad too?”

“I think so. But she left when she was a teenager and I don’t think they ever saw each other again.”

Callahan twisted his lips and asked, “Can we find her online?”

His grandfather nodded. “Most likely. Why?”

“Maybe finding her will make Dad happy.”

“Is your father sad?”

He slid off the couch and took the box. “It would be a good surprise, right?”

Poppy and Nonna shared a look and nodded. “Get my iPad. It’s in the kitchen.”

Leaving the box on the floor, he rushed to the kitchen and carefully picked up the iPad—he’d already dropped it twice since his father bought it for Nonna—and brought it back. He climbed onto the couch and tucked himself into her side as she typed in the same name he saw on the letters into Google. His eyes widened as a long list of results came up. When Nonna clicked the first link, it showed a picture of a pretty dark-skinned woman with a big smile and she was surrounded by so many flowers.

“What does it say?”

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