Chapter 2 - The Box Beneath His Bed
People kept bringing food.
Casseroles. Muffins. Soup in containers with names written on masking tape.
I thanked everyone.
I put things in the refrigerator.
I forgot what they had brought before they reached the front door.
By evening, our house smelled like onions and flowers, and I could no longer bear either one.
Daniel stood at the kitchen sink rinsing a clean mug.
He had been rinsing it for almost a minute.
“Turn off the water,” I said.
He obeyed.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then he said, “Did you know?”
“No.”
“Not any of it?”
I shook my head.
He set the mug down so hard it cracked against the counter.
I flinched.
Daniel stared at the broken handle.
“I’m sorry.”
I wanted to say something comforting.
Instead, I heard myself ask, “Why was he afraid of us?”
Daniel’s face changed.
“Of me.”
I did not answer.
That was answer enough.
An hour later, Theo knocked.
He had changed into jeans and a sweatshirt. Without the dress, he looked smaller.
He held a cardboard box against his chest.
“I can come back.”
“No,” I said too quickly. “Please.”
Daniel stayed near the kitchen doorway.
Theo noticed him and lowered his eyes.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt anybody.”
Daniel opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Theo placed the box on the table.
“Jack said this belonged here.”
On the lid, in my son’s untidy handwriting, were four words.
MOM, PLEASE OPEN THIS.
My knees nearly gave out.
I sat before lifting the lid.
Inside were sketchbooks, fabric samples, a flash drive, and three envelopes.
One said MOM.
One said DAD.
The third said THEO, STOP PUTTING THIS OFF.
A laugh broke out of me so sharply that it hurt.
Theo wiped his eyes.
“He knew I’d chicken out.”
Daniel moved closer.
On top of the sketchbooks lay the scholarship letter.
I read it once.
Then again.
Congratulations, Jack Whitaker.
The words blurred.
He had been accepted nine days before his diagnosis.
Nine days.
While I had been worrying about baseball fees and whether he was sleeping enough, my son had opened an email that might have changed his whole life.
“Why didn’t he tell me?” I whispered.
Theo sat across from me.
“He planned to. He was waiting for the right night.”
There it was.
The right night.
That mythical evening when nobody was tired, nobody was worried about money, and nobody would turn someone else’s dream into a family argument.
How many things had our son postponed while waiting for us to become easier to approach?
I opened the envelope addressed to me.
Mom,
Before you get mad, yes, I used your good scissors.
I covered my mouth.
Also, I know you probably think you would have listened. You probably would have. But sometimes when Dad laughed about something, you laughed too, even when I could tell you didn’t mean it.
I looked at Daniel.
He was reading over my shoulder.
Neither of us moved.
The letter continued.
I’m not saying you were terrible parents. You weren’t. You came to every game. You made the house feel safe in a hundred ways.
I just didn’t know if it was safe for this.
My son had drawn a tiny spool of thread beneath the sentence.
I pressed my fingertips to it.
There was more.
If I get better, I’ll probably tell you all this badly and slam a door somewhere in the middle.
If I don’t, please don’t turn my room into a museum of the kid you thought I was.
There’s room for the other kid, too.
I could no longer see the page.
Daniel backed away from the table.
“I need some air.”
The back door closed behind him.
Theo watched it.
“I shouldn’t have done it at the funeral.”
I reached across the table.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“No,” I repeated. “You kept a promise. We’re the ones who made it hard.”
Theo’s shoulders began to shake.
He had held himself together through the entire service.
Now he cried with his face in his hands, and I moved around the table and held him as I had when he was seven and his parents were fighting four houses down the street.
After a while, he whispered, “There’s something else in the box.”
I looked toward the sketchbooks.
“The blue one,” he said.
Inside the cover was a title.
THE OPEN DOOR SHOW.
May you like
Beneath it, Jack had written:
For everyone who has ever been told the thing they love is embarrassing.
