Page 36 of Neat
“Oh, the one on my lower back is hisfavorite.”
I laughed, peeling the top off the dusty box. “Why were you so hell bent on pissing them off?”
A long sigh left her lips. “That’s a very long story, and one that would require libations. Maybe—” Her words died mid-sentence. “Logan? What’s wrong?”
I wanted to saynothing.
I wanted to shake my head, laugh it off, tell her to continue with her story.
I wanted to put the lid back on the box in front of me and pretend I’d never opened it and seen what was inside.
But I couldn’t.
All I could do was stand there, gaping at the charred remnants of the most horrible day in all my life.
The box had been unlabeled — and now that I saw what was inside it, I knew why. It was a box not meant to be found, one not meant to be dug through. Black soot lined the edges of it, and the items that filled it looked like someone had cleaned out their desk after being fired, ready to make the walk of shame through the halls to their car with everything that had decorated their office loaded into a box.
The photo frame that sat on top was busted — the glass broken, the silver frame mostly black now, and the photo seared and water damaged. Only one little inch of it remained clear enough to make out.
It was my oldest brother’s face — his smile, one sparked by the joke Dad had told us just before the photo was snapped.
I swallowed, gripping the edges of the folding table the box was on to keep myself from stumbling backward or passing out. All the blood drained from my face, from my neck, from every vein in my body.
“It’s my Dad’s stuff.”
The words were barely out of my mouth before Mallory scrambled up from where she was sitting on the floor, peering into the box with me. “What?!”
I nodded numbly. “That… that’s Jordan,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat as I pointed to what was left of the photo. “He had this picture on his desk. It was from our fishing trip the summer before he died.”
“Jesus…” she murmured, reaching inside the box to retrieve the frame. She held it as delicately as she could, but already, her fingers were covered in black. She pulled the frame close to her eyes, studying it, and I watched her eyes trace the photo before they found mine again. “Logan, wasn’t there an investigation done that day?”
I nodded, every movement slow and distant, like I was submerged under icy water just seconds from passing out.
“Wouldn’t this have been evidence?” she asked, pulling the next charred item out of the box. Bits of ashes fell off the once-gold paperweight, now mostly black. It was one my mom gave him for Christmas, engraved with his favorite Colin Powell quote.
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.
I couldn’t speak. I just stared at the weight in her hands as Mallory stared at me.
“Logan?”
I blinked. “I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t think it was relevant.”
“Maybe,” she agreed, thumbing the small part of the quote that peeked through the grime. “But, if it wasn’t relevant to the fire department or the police… then why did someone keep it?”
We shared a look then, and my heart kicked back to life in my chest, thundering hard in my ears as my hands dug into the box. One by one, I pulled out each item in that box — what wasleftof each item, anyway — until I got to the very bottom and retrieved a thick, heavy, dated and familiar rectangle that I never thought I’d see again.
Mallory gasped. “Is that…”
“His laptop,” I finished for her, swallowing as I carefully sat it on the table. “Yes.”
For a while, we both just stared at it, but then Mallory rounded the table to stand on the same side as me. She reached forward, carefully flipping the monitor of the laptop up to reveal the damage inside.
The screen was shattered and covered with a thick, black gunk, and what was left of the keyboard was melted and warped, revealing the plates and wires that made everything work underneath.
Mallory peered inside the box again. “Is there a power cord? Do you think it would turn on?”
“Look at it,” I told her, waving a hand over the damage.
