Thinking of you, Jack.
I read the letter that came with the gift receipt I found twice.
The right thing to do would be to send her a text, let her know that I got them, promise her that I’d take the pills and read the book, and then actually do both. I’d been really curt the last time I reached out. But if I opened that door, she was going to want to talk, either via message or by phone or, gods forbid, over video chat. She had to be worried about me if she was sending me prenatals and a handbook. There was no way seeing my face or hearing my voice right now would make that anxiety any less.
I turned the bottle over to read the instructions. Three pills twice a day. From what I could see through the translucent bottle, they were the size of horse pills. As it was, I wanted to puke more often than not. I wasn’t sure how I was going to take them, but Jack was right. My baby deserved the best nutrition.
I set them on the side table, telling myself I’d message her later… much, much later, so there would be no opportunity to talk. The “I’m on my way to bed, but I wanted to let you know I found your package, thank you so much” kind of deal.
Looking around the room, I’d managed to make more of a mess than I had accomplished anything. Boxes and piles werehere, there, and everywhere. It was pretty much the only thing I did lately, because when I stopped, all I did was sleep or cry.
The wild thing was, I wasn’t crying for any particular reason. Sure, sometimes it was because the heavy grief laying on me was too much and my current situation sucked, but neither of those would normally have set me into that kind of a spiral. Pregnancy hormones were no joke. My inability to control my emotions was a lot of the reason I kept to myself. I didn’t even like being around me. How could anybody else?
I went to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water, chugging it down, trying to stay hydrated. I felt awful about not giving my baby all the food they needed, despite whathisfolks had sent me. Bananas, scrambled eggs, toast, and plain spaghetti with butter were pretty much the only things I could choke down that didn’t come back up. My food was all one color, or at least, varying shades of it. I wasn’t sure how that happened.
I tried to focus on other things, like who I was deep inside, but that was scary, so I went back to cleaning out the basement.
Some days I was very methodical, trying to complete an entire room at a time. Others, like today, I got it in my mind that I needed to be in a particular space, and today, that was underground. The basement had been theoneforbidden place growing up. Not that I minded. I was terrified of it when I was young and was hardly a fan now.
It was the kind you saw in horror movies, not the nice basements that teens went to hang out in in all the sitcoms, but dirt floors in some places, rocks for walls, visible moisture in spots. And don’t get me started on the spiderwebs.
When I was young, I had asked Rawlins if it had ghosts or monsters. He’d assured me it didn't but that his work stuff was down there, and I needed to stay upstairs. It made sense as a kid, but now I had this itch in my brain that said it was something more.
I might’ve been an adult now, but the basement still creeped me out. What started as me thinking I would look through a box or two turned into me dragging those boxes upstairs, one by one, and sorting them. I’d gotten into a routine. I would set anything that was in boxes into piles according to what they were and then decide if I would keep them or not, or if they had value or not.
In this case, they were all papers, so I had some documents and photos, some playbills from theater outings, and bills—all random things. Any time I thought something was at all important, I wrote it down.
When I first started taking notes, I tried to put them all in my phone, but I quickly realized it was turning into a chaotic mess. Now I had a notebook for all of that. On the top of the page, I put where the item was found and all the things I might need to remember about it. It was still a chaotic mess, but felt easier to manage this way.
My stomach started to growl, and I’d barely gotten through half of the boxes. Initially I was going to push on. Jack’s package kept reminding me not to. That this wasn’t just about me and finding answers. I had another human to consider.
I went to the kitchen, grabbed a banana… then felt guilty and went back out to the living room, snagged the bottle of vitamins, and went back into the kitchen again. I wanted to take them while eating the banana. Their directions said to take with food, so I added a piece of toast with jam to make sure there was enough food in my belly.
When I was back in the paperwork, stuck between a pile of photographs was a bank statement. I had an entire box of them earlier, but this one was kept to the side, and that got me curious. Not about Rawlins’s money. I pretty much knew what he had, what he’d put into my account, and if there were other accounts in random places, whatever.
I was curious about why this particular one was here. When I opened it, it was for a Dempsey, which was Rawlins’s last name. That made sense. What didn’t was the first name—Charlotte Dempsey.
I tried to think if he’d ever mentioned her. They had to be related, right? Was it his mom? Did he ever tell me her name? Did I ever meet her? My memory of my younger years wasn’t the best. Probably because I was protecting myself from trauma.
The more I tried to retrieve the information, the further away it felt. I wrote everything down in the notebook, but instead of putting it with the other bank information, I slid it in the notebook. Something about it felt important.
I kept digging as the sky grew darker. I was on a roll, and if I stopped, it might be days before I’d be able to get back into the swing of things. I’d already learned that lesson.
My favorite items to go through were the photographs, even though I didn’t recognize most of the people in them. Some of them called to me more than others. There was a woman who looked to be probably about my age, but from days gone by. She was smiling with a watering can in her hand. Had this been Rawlins’s girlfriend, maybe? Did he ever have one of those?
I flipped it over.A family garden.That was all the information it gave. So not a girlfriend? I put it aside. Maybe if I uploaded it into Google later, something might hit.
The more I found, the more I realized that Rawlins had hidden so much from me. Maybe hide wasn’t the best word, but transparent didn’t work either.
There were pictures of a mountain, a whole bunch with a dog I’d never met, and one with a yellow door. It was an older picture. There was a man in it, too, but he felt like he wasn’t as important as the door was. It was like I should know what it was.
Had I been there before? Was it maybe around here? The image was grainy, like it had been printed on someone’s printer many eons ago when you were first able to print on photo paper.
The more I stared at it the surer I was that I’d definitely been there. This picture went into the notebook because I couldn’t let it go. It gave me zero information, not so much as a date on the back. But also, it felt familiar.
My skin prickled, and I set the papers in my hand down, my body on high alert. Suddenly, I felt exposed with the curtains open, like someone was looking in, like I wasn’t alone. I went to the windows and checked the locks and pulled the curtains closed, looking around, not seeing anyone, not hearing anything. But it felt safer, like that thin fabric was going to protect me.
Friend.
