Beyond Eighteen (30 page)

I longed to be on Kelly Street. I needed to
feel my heartbeat speed faster as we pulled into the driveway. I
wanted to smell Grandpa’s Old Spice cologne fused with Grandma’s
slight scent of rose oil. I craved the heat of the potbelly stove
as it pressed its warmth against me, and the aroma of burning oak
as it found me safe and sound.

“Wilson, if you’re that hot, just turn down
the heat.” Joanie’s voice popped the memories that floated across
my mind.

But it wasn’t about the need to lower the
temperature in the Durango, or being stifled by the heat J so
unselfishly pushed on high. It was about sensing the only home I
truly knew before I’d met Max. It was the home of small town
familiarity and winter breaks from school. It was best friends
sharing their wildest dreams of summer, and sisters lying on the
beach while listening to the waves break against the sand. It was
the love I felt for J when I didn’t have to tell her where to go as
she turned onto Kelly Street. I rolled up the window, smiling at
her as I felt my heart speed to the recognizable rhythm of finally
parking in the driveway.

“We’re here!” Joanie sang.

“Yep, and you know, J, it’s probably
freezing in there,” I replied, looking at the weather-beaten white
and gray siding that enclosed the petite yet inviting porch that
never failed to welcome me home every time I came back. The short,
bare picket fence stained gray by the coastal air seemed to be much
older than I remembered when my grandpa built it many summers ago.
The shrubs in the front, still manicured and kept presentable,
reminded me that I had to thank the neighbors, Mr. and Mrs.
Codwell, for watching the place.

I took a deep breath, pushed the car door
open, and let the cold, coastal air take my entire body in her
clutches. It was easier to bite the bullet and freeze my ass off
for the moment while my body became numb than to sit in the SUV and
argue with my warmer self about putting on a jacket or trying to
bundle up against the cold. Unfortunately, that argument only
worked when someone was already home and had a fire blazing in the
living room fireplace.

We collected our suitcases and carried them
up the worn old steps. The hollow thumps and rattling creaks of our
footsteps against the porch reminded me of the times I tried to
sneak in after forgetting to let them know where I was on long
summer days; times when my grandma sat me down on her old brown
tweed sofa and made me listen to all the bad scenarios that ran
through her head while I was out. I can still hear her. “Wilson,
you could have slipped off the edge of the sea cliff, fell down
that sharp, jaggedy face, and been swallowed up by the heavy surf
of the ocean. Nobody would have known the difference, because you
forgot to check in!” Her stories always seemed to work for a couple
of weeks, scaring me into calling the house periodically when I was
out playing. But eventually, responsibility gave way to
forgetfulness and I would have to sit on the tweed couch and endure
another lecture about all the bad things that could happen to me
when I didn’t check in.

I never carried a house key, seeing as my
grandpa always had one hidden in the most obvious of places. I
reached up and pulled open the old faulty glass panel on the dull
black Victorian porch light hanging to the right of the
weather-beaten door. Behind the flame-shaped light bulb, next to
the socket, there was the key. Even though everyone in the
neighborhood knew it was there, he thought it was an ingenious spot
to hide a key to the house; thinking nobody knew about it but the
three of us.

“Holy shit, Wilson, I forgot how cold
winters are here. Can you even feel the key, or are your fingers as
numb as mine?” Joanie said through bone-shaking chills and
teeth-rattling chatters.

I felt my fingers tickle and catch the sharp
edges of the key before I dragged it to the end of the light
fixture.

“Got it,” I said as I pulled it down and
opened the door. Thank God my grandpa rigged the porch light with a
motion sensor.

Once in the house, the strong aroma of cedar
laced with a hint of old books and aged wooden furniture swept
through every cell of my body. The calm cold of the house was
captured by the locked doors and windows.

I looked around and noticed the pile of wood
Max and I left next to the stove the last time we’d been there. A
smile crept across my face, thinking about how blazing hot we had
the place. It also reminded me that I hadn’t really heard from him
since I called him and left a message a couple of hours earlier. I
pulled my phone from my pocket and noticed he hadn’t responded to
the last text I sent.

“Max hasn’t texted back yet?” J asked. She
slid her hands up and down her arms, trying to warm up. Her words
actually steamed and floated out of her mouth. Yeah, it was too
cold.

“Nope, but he said he would be in meetings
all day and that he’d call when he could,” I answered her before I
slipped the phone back in my pocket. I noticed a pile of junk mail
on the tiny dining room table, perfect kindling to start a fire and
warm the place up. It might even give me something to focus on
besides Max and not hearing from him.

Joanie rummaged around the handful of
jackets, coats, and thick shirts that hung on the rack behind the
door. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that she managed to find
my grandpa’s favorite lumberjack flannel—a red and black quilted
button-up. Another moment that made my heart skip.

I could tell Mrs. Codwell was the one who’d
brought this last stack of mail in. She was always thoughtful
enough to make three piles. The first one was a heap of pure
advertisements and junk mail, the second pile was important letters
and bills, and the third was a newly created stack of sympathy
letters and cards. The third pile began when my grandma died six
months ago, then seemed to dry up a month or two after that before
it found its way back to the table upon Grandpa’s death. I sorted
through the junk mail, collecting anything that would burn well,
and tossed the rest back in the stack. I slid my hands across the
other two piles of mail, making sure I wasn’t missing a 15-day
shutoff notice for my water or electricity. I was relieved to see
only white legal sized envelopes and no bright-colored notices.

I dragged my fingers across the third stack
of mail, watching it separate into four rectangular envelopes
without windows. Handwritten and addressed to the Mooney family, I
knew if I stopped and took a moment to open and read the cards it
would be inviting a sadness I really didn’t want to experience
right then. I just didn’t want to read the stories of a man who
died of a broken heart. As I continued to drag my fingertips across
the mail, in an unconscious act of feeling the table, my fingers
caught behind one of the thick envelopes and I hauled it to the
edge. The goldenrod colored envelope teetered for a moment before
it tumbled to the hardwood floor. My eye caught the handwriting
that stretched across the front. My name was sprawled in big, bold
block letters, in a print that seemed recognizable but at the same
time unfamiliar. I bent down and picked it up. My heart thrashed
hard against my sternum. There was no return address in the left
hand corner, and a ‘Forever’ stamp in the right was marred by a
postage date haphazardly inked across it. I flipped it over and
noticed an address written right where the flap meets the envelope.
Where the name should have been was a haphazardly drawn heart. It
was from someone in Seattle, Washington. I tried to link it with
anyone I knew who lived in the Pacific Northwest, but I couldn’t
seem to think of a single soul.

Joanie must have noticed me standing there,
frozen in thought. “What is it?” she asked casually.

“I don’t know. I have a card addressed to me
from someone in Seattle, Washington. I don’t know anybody from
Seattle,” I answered, preoccupied as I still search the recesses of
my mind trying to think of who it could be.

“Well, maybe it’s someone who went to
Bethany’s with us. Let me see,” Joanie said as she meandered over
and I handed it to her.

“I don’t recognize the handwriting, but
whoever sent it mailed it from Crescent City, California on
December 21
^st
. Look,” Joanie, pointed to the postage
marking across the stamp. “Do you know anyone from Crescent City?”
she asked.

“I don’t even know where Crescent City is,”
I answered her.

“Oh my God, Wilson, it’s at the border of
California and Oregon,” Joanie huffed as she tossed the envelope
back to me. “Open it. What do you have to lose?” she mused as she
snatched the junk mail from my other hand and walked over to the
fireplace.

I tried to think back to any friends of my
grandparents or long lost relatives that may have moved up to the
Pacific Northwest, but nobody was coming to mind.

“Who wouldn’t write their name on a frickin’
card? My guess is that it’s someone who doesn’t want you to know
who they are,” Joanie said rhetorically as she crumpled paper and
stuffed it around the wood she had positioned in the fireplace.

Then it dawned on me, and there was a pit in
my stomach.

“I think it’s a letter from Candi,” I
answered. “I don’t think I can open it,” I continued as I looked up
at her. “I don’t want to read her lies or the fake love she’ll try
and manipulate me with. There’s nothing she can say that will make
me forgive her for the last ten years of my life.”

“Then don’t. You don’t have to open it. Just
toss it into the fire and forget you ever saw it,” Joanie said as
she slowly pulled it from my hands. “Do you even have her last
address?” she asked as she kept flipping and turning the envelope
over, trying to find evidence that it was from Candi. “Her name
isn’t even on it; I don’t think you should work yourself up when
you really don’t know if it’s even from her.”

“I just have a feeling it’s from her, J.
She’s called me and now she’s trying to write me. What the hell
does she want?”

“Well, there is only one way to find out.
You have to open it,” Joanie said holding it out to me.

I didn’t take it. I didn’t even want to
touch it. I just stared at it as she bounced it up and down in
front of me.

“Wilson, what if the closure you are looking
for is in this envelope? I think you should open it.” Joanie
said.

I took the card from J and wondered if it
was going to give me the closure I wanted or tear apart what little
hope I had hid in the bottom of my heart for my mom.

~ Max ~

I looked up at the clock.
It was 6:30. I couldn’t believe I was finally leaving the
office.
Man it’s late.
I pushed the Bluetooth into my ear, pulled out my phone, and
dialed Wilson. I needed to hear how the meeting had gone with Dean
McCallous.

“
Hi,” she said in a low
grumble.

“
Hey, sweets, I’m just
leaving the office. I am so sorry I haven’t been able to call you
sooner,” I told her as I tossed my briefcase onto the passenger’s
seat of my BMW, took off my sports coat, and loosened my tie from
around my neck.

“
That’s fine,” she sounded
preoccupied.

“
You don’t sound too
happy…it went that bad with the dean?” I answered immediately as I
slipped into the comfort of my Z4 and started it up. Even though
the engine purred, I could feel the muscles across my shoulders
tighten and a pressure slowly rake down either side of my spine. I
was bummed that I wasn’t there with her.

“
No, it went okay with
Dean McCallous,” she answered.

I waited to hear more, but she never carried
on talking. I drove out of the covered garage just in time for it
to start snowing.

“
Sooo, then, it wasn’t
about losing your financial aid?” I asked. It was like pulling
teeth to get her to engage in some type of legitimate
dialogue.

“
No, it wasn’t about my
financial aid. But I signed a gag order, stating I wouldn’t discuss
any particular incidents involving specific people working or
attending Wesley in the last six months; so, you can imagine what
it was about,
Mr.
Goldstein
,” I heard her voice lighten as
she said my name.

“
Oh, so that explains the
voicemail from Dean McCallous. Tell me…no expulsion or disciplinary
action, right?”

“
Nope, they wanted to
cover their asses. They graduated me early. They said I was
eighteen and had enough credits to get my diploma right then. But
they did say I had to be out of the dorms by January 7th. Tell me
you are available to help me move…” I could hear her actually
laugh.

“
Aaahh…yeah…no, I don’t
think they’ll let me set foot on the Wesley campus anytime soon. So
sorry, babe, you’ll have to do that without me,” I answered. I felt
a bubble grow in my throat.

“
How are you going to
clear your stuff out of your classroom, then?” Wilson asked,
seriously concerned.

“
Well, it isn’t my room
any more. If they haven’t already boxed up my stuff, I’ll probably
ask Calvin or someone to do it for me. I’m not too worried. My only
concern is you, and that you are okay,” I told her.

In all honesty, though, I had this hovering
guilt that came at me in waves. Some days were better than others,
but the days that were hard were the ones where I just couldn’t
help but feel like I’d let Wilson down somehow. There was this part
of me that kept thinking it was wrong to be with her; for taking
her away from her last six months at Wesley. I couldn’t help but
think about things she’d miss…she wouldn’t be going to her senior
prom or ever walk proudly across the stage to collect her diploma.
I knew she’d say it didn’t matter. That she only wanted to be with
me.