Page 13 of When I'm Gone
“Anyway ...” He needed to steer the conversation in a different direction. “Is there anything you want to know?” he asked, trying to remember how interviews are supposed to work.
“Mr. Richardson.” Jessie put the letter in her back pocket and slapped her hands on the counter, fingers spread wide. “I want to work here. I want to help Natalie’s family and her children.” She bit her lip again before continuing, “What you don’t know is that I lost my mom when I was twelve. I know how hard it can be for a kid. I promised Natalie I’d be there for them.” Real tears sparkled in Jessie’s eyes when she looked up at him, almost pleading, “If you’ll let me.”
Luke blinked twice. “What can I say to that?” He put out his hand. “You’re hired.”
Jessie took it and shook briefly. Luke yanked a half-sheet paper towel from a dwindling roll and passed it to the girl. She wiped her face and caught most of the running mascara under her eyes. She crumpled it into a ball and searched the room, probably for a garbage can.
“Under the sink.” Luke put his hand out. “Here, I’ll take it.”
“Ew, Mr. Richardson, I wiped my nose with that. I can do it, really.” She crossed the room to the sink, unlatched the child safety lock, and tossed the tissue inside. Natalie’s letter peeked out of her back pocket.
The front door opened and closed with a slam. May’s voice called out, “Dad, I’m home. You upstairs?”
“No, hon, we’re in here!” he shouted, interrupting May before she could say anything else embarrassing about his lack of parenting skills. “Come meet Jessie.”
May ran into the kitchen, her long, curly, dark hair unbrushed, sprawling across her face. She dropped her backpack by the kitchen table, where they always did homework with Natalie after school and where he’d been making a sad attempt at keeping up with assignments. Now they could do it with Jessie. Now they wouldn’t be consigned to a life of forgotten school projects and goldfish crumbs in bed. Once again, Natalie got it right.
CHAPTER 5
Valentine’s Day crept up on Luke. He should’ve seen its billowing pink fluff inching over the horizon and right into his life, but he didn’t. Suddenly one day the drugstore aisles and advertising circulars were covered in hearts and cupids. Valentine’s Day had never been a big holiday in the Richardson home. The focus was always on getting the kids’ valentines signed and addressed, rather than some kind of big romance.
Natalie always claimed the inferiority of the holiday rested in the lameness of the candy. Box of chocolates?Wayoverrated. Luke got Natalie a small box of cream-filled chocolates the first year they were married, thinking he was being romantic. It wasn’t romantic. It was gross. Who thought a filling that tasted like orange Creamsicles was a good idea anyway? They took one bite out of each chocolate and tossed the box into the garbage. Every February 14 after that he found a small box of Russell Stover drugstore chocolates on his pillow with one bite taken out of each piece.
When Luke went down to pick up the mail in its normal spot on the loose shag of the doormat, he was surprised to find a bulging USPS prepaid envelope waiting for him. Inside lay a small heart-shaped box of chocolates with a blue envelope taped to it. The box was small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, a yellow discount sticker half-peeled off on one side. If Nat had bought these, they were more than a year old. In his head, he could hear her laughing, the loud huffing laugh she reserved for moments when she thought she was being hilarious.
It had been a week since Natalie’s last letter, and Luke could barely control the urge to tear into the letter right there in the front hall. Instead, he ripped the letter off the red-tinted cellophane. A hand-drawn red heart covered the back of the envelope. What was Natalie up to? He tossed the chocolates on the hall table and went back upstairs to get dressed.
Somehow he made it to his room before opening the letter. It had less to do with self-control and more to do with his new routine. When one of Natalie’s letters arrived, first he’d pinch the letter between his fingers and try to guess how many pages were folded inside. He was getting pretty talented at estimating accurately. Today’s letter felt like a long one, three or four pages for sure.
Next, he’d take out the long golden letter opener his foster mother had given him for his high school graduation. He’d never needed it before, but after shredding the first few envelopes with his fingers, Luke saw the wisdom in using extra care. Now the quiet whisper of the letter opener made his heart jump with anticipation.
Then, he’d slip out the folded sheets of notebook paper and unfold them slowly, taking in her loopy, semi-sloppy handwriting and the date, count the pages, and smile because he was right at the number. Today there were four pages, but her handwriting was extra loopy, as if she was particularly happy when she wrote it. Oh my, she had dotted every freakingiwith a heart. Luke laughed out loud. He still loved her so much.
Valentine’s Day
Dear Luke,
I’m taking a chance here, trying something new. If I send you these letters, I know your Valentine’s Day will land on a different day than mine. So I’ll try to put these letters for special occasions aside and make sure you get them on the right days.
It’s Valentine’s Day, and we’re comfortably doing nothing. Well, that’s a bit of a lie. I stole some candy from the kids’ backpacks, and I’m currently sucking on a handful of red and pink Nerds. Unfortunately, Will didn’t bring any candy home. They don’t exchange valentines in eighth grade. Annoying. It’s getting to the point where, if I’m still around, I might have to start buying myself Valentine’s Day candy, even if it is the most subpar of all holiday candy.
But if I’m not hanging out on the couch eating a bagful of candy hearts, you might be missing me today. I know I’ll be missing you. So, being the cheeser I am, I decided to write down part of our love story. Bear with me—I might be a little creative in parts, but in general, this is how I remember that day, the day the direction of my life changed forever. The day I met you.
It was three days before my fourteenth birthday when I moved into 815 Winter Lane. It was a really hot day, but we were moving from Mississippi so the muggy heat of Michigan didn’t bother me. It did surprise me. Everyone in the coastal town of Gulfport laughed at the idea of lifelong southerners migrating to the frozen north. I think I expected snow when I got out of the truck, even though it was August. Instead of snow, I saw you: thirteen, with yellow hair so sweaty it clung to your head. Your cheeks were a bright red, and I thought you were about to die from dehydration. As I stretched my legs, you stared at me like I was from outer space.
“Hey, kid, you our new neighbor?” my dad shouted. He didn’t mince words, did he? Without answering, you ran away into 813 Winter Lane, right next door. For a moment, when the front door slammed, I didn’t mind leaving my friends, the ocean, and eternal summer to live on Winter Lane in freeze-your-butt-off Michigan.
“Natty, come help me in the house.” Mom waved me inside, the movers already unloading boxes and pieces of furniture into the mustard-yellow, two-story colonial.
“Mom, can I check out the backyard?” Ben couldn’t stop moving. If he’d been cooped up in that van for one more second, he would’ve exploded.
“Sure, Benny. Dinner at six. Don’t get too dirty.” Ben got to play, as always, and I got to clean. My mom has always been sexist that way.
God, that house was hot. We didn’t have AC—bet my parents thought we didn’t need it after all the quips about the cold. I still remember the heat when we opened the door, like taking a cake out of the oven. My job was to open every window in the house, all seventeen. But before I opened each one, my mom wanted me to wash it first. She rummaged through the boxes of cleaning supplies and found me a full bottle of window cleaner and an unbelievably large roll of paper towels.
“There’s a breeze coming in from the east, so do the front windows first,” my mom ordered. Back then, there was nothing to entertain you during work but your own mind. I thought about starting a new school, wondered if you’d be in my same grade, if we’d take a bus together, if you’d be my first friend. It took an hour to finish all the front windows, and the house had cooled ten degrees from the breeze they let in.
Time was dragging by at an interminably slow rate, and my hair was nearly soaked with sweat. Until I finally got to the windows looking out on the backyard. You were there playing with Ben, popping in and out of the dilapidated shack my mom wanted to tear down. I took my time washing those windows, pushing them open one at a time, trying to decipher the few mumbles and phrases echoing through the backyard.
