Return to Sender (Letters to Nowhere Part 2)

by Julie Cross

  This idea appeals to me on so many levels but I have one major concern. “What happens when the money runs out? I’d hate to get someone involved and then pull the rug out from under them.”

  “We’ll take half of the money and invest it, plus open the fund to outside donors. I think the cause is very worthy. Statics have proven that elementary and middle-school kids who participate in extracurricular activities and sports are less likely to drop out of high school, abuse drugs and alcohol… In addition, children in the foster care system have a much higher probability of going down those paths.”

  “You really did think about this,” I mumble, lost in my own thoughts. What if my parents weren’t as financially stable? What if they were dirt poor and what if I were several years younger and had nowhere to go except into foster care? Since losing them, I’ve never once thought of myself as lucky. Until now.

  And my mother would have loved to head up something like this. She lived for November and December, when the gym team would sponsor a family for the holidays. My mom was always in charge and spent days and days shopping for the family and calling local businesses for food and service donations. If the kids in the sponsor family were interested in gymnastics, she’d always talk the gym board into donating free lessons. The kids would always end up with way more gifts than I ever got for Christmas.

  I give Bentley a sad smile. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Just sign this check over to the gym and I’ll take care of everything.” He pats my hand. “This is a very good way to spend this money, Karen. I think we can have the program up and running by fall.”

  “Sounds great.”

  Both of us head out into the gym, joining Stevie, Ellen, and Blair. Blair jogs beside me during our warm-up laps around the gymnastics floor. “Everything okay?” she whispers.

  “Yeah, just some financial stuff I had to take care of.”

  An hour into afternoon practice and my thoughts have completely shifted from the $200,000 check to the snarky YouTube comments on my floor routine from the Pan Am Games. I honestly don’t know how I’d ever stop thinking about my parents being gone if I didn’t have gymnastics to distract me. Bentley has us working new tumbling passes on the tumble track today and after nailing my fifth double twisting double back, I get brave and ask, “Can I try this on floor, into the pit?”

  He’s silent for way longer than I can handle, his forehead wrinkling, probably coming up with arguments against this plan. “I need to upgrade floor,” I add.

  From behind me, Stevie shuffles around like she’s got something to add, but when I glance over my shoulder at her, she stops moving and her lips form a straight line. I don’t have to be a genius to know what she’s thinking. A double twisting double backflip on floor is Stevie’s signature skill. Sure, lots of other gymnasts have done it, too, but none with the height and power that she has.

  Luckily for me, I’ve spent nearly half my life watching Stevie train and perform this skill.

  “No,” Bentley says, but before I can open my mouth to protest he adds, “not until you can land it perfectly with three extra mats stacked at the end. The tumble track is giving you a huge boost, so it’s hard to tell how close you are to having enough power to do it without the help of a trampoline.”

  “But three eight-inch mats? Seriously?” I’m trying not to whine, but it isn’t working very well. “That’s twenty-four inches higher than regulation mats.” Twenty-four inches sooner for the unwelcome ground to come up and meet me, regardless of whether or not I’ve finished all the twisting and flipping.

  Bentley narrows his eyes. “Three extra mats. End of discussion.”

  “Can I have the same deal for my double double layout?” Stevie asks, getting me, Blair, and Ellen to snap our attention in her direction.

  She must be afraid that I’m going to take her signature skill, so she’s trying to get a new one.

  “Deal,” Bentley says without hesitation, but I notice when Blair and I go to retrieve the extra mats, he’s poised himself near the end of the tumble track, ready to save us when disaster strikes.

  I let Stevie take the first turn. I’m pretty intimidated by this task, even though I brought it on myself. Seeing her attempt will get me fired up to match her efforts. She takes off with a power hurdle, and then throws herself into the round-off back handspring. She’s super high going into the first layout and twist and by the time the landing surface (twenty-four inches higher than normal) meets her, she’s only a little bit short of finishing the skill. She takes a giant hop forward and eventually has to put her hands down on the mat. My gaze darts to Bentley. Surprise fills his expression for a second and then he pulls it together, looking more impassive by the time she’s upright again. I make a note to watch his face more often when my teammates are performing. Obviously, he’s not as cool and collected as he seems.

  “Not bad,” Bentley says, then he nods for me to go.

  Butterflies flap in my stomach. I want to make this so bad it’s creating this amazing adrenaline rush. I release all the air from my lungs, mark my starting place, and launch into my hurdle. The visual of the mats stacked high at the end of the tumble track helps push me to jump as high as possible. My usual visual markers are a bit off with the mats in the way, but I finish the second flip and twist with several feet still between me and the pool of blue mat below. Not only do I sink right into the mats without a single movement of my feet, my chest is all the way up. The first face I spot is Stevie’s. She bites her lower lip, anger filling her expression.

  “Okay, it looks like we’re going to do some real tumbling today,” Bentley says, giving me a high five.

  I return to the opposite end while Blair takes a turn, working on her full twisting double layout. I’m adjusting my wristbands when Stevie says, “If you add that to your routine, I’m adding the double double layout.”

  “Fine.” I shrug like this isn’t totally getting me riled up for tumbling on the real floor.

  “I’m gonna get Bentley to let me add a punch front full after my triple full, too,” she says.

  And now all I can think about is: What else can I upgrade? How much better is Stevie going to get before she hits her peak? And how long before I hit mine?

  chapter eight

  Jordan

  KAREN: Where are you?

  JORDAN: Just outside Columbus. Grabbing lunch and then I’m picking up another camp coach.

  KAREN: Someone is willing to ride 7 or 8 hrs in your car? Must be a good friend

  JORDAN: haha. You’re just jealous of my purple stripes. And I’ve never met this guy. He’s new.

  KAREN: gotta go, my break’s over. Stacey’s giving me the evil eye. I’ll call you tonight.

  I’m circling what appears to be a less than pleasant neighborhood, looking for a door labeled 6007AB when a Hispanic guy about my age standing on a curb holding a garbage bag waves me down.

  Not sure if I should stop or not, I slow down, rolling the car slightly toward the sidewalk. I’m going slow enough to see the guy laugh and his mouth form what looks like my name. I hit the brakes and crank the window down halfway.

  “Your car fits right in here, man,” he says. “But your white face stands out like a baby’s ass. Jordan Bentley?”

  I shift the car into park. “TJ Castro?”

  “Yep.” He jogs around to the passenger side, tosses the garbage bag into the backseat, and hops in.

  I don’t wait for him to buckle up before peeling out of this neighborhood and heading for the highway.

  TJ taps the dashboard and laughs. “Dude, I would have stayed inside and spent an extra twenty minutes with the girl in my bed if I’d known you’d show up in this car. Could have parked this baby all day and no one would’ve touched it.”

  “Um, thanks?”

  “I figured you’d roll into town in some Lexus. Aren’t you going to Harvard or Stanford? University-expensive-as-hell is what I like to call them.” He angles the vent to hit him in the face
. “The air works. That’s good. Especially for an old piece of shit.”

  If he’d been someone from my school, I’d probably be insulted, but it’s obvious we’re on the same wavelength with this issue—any car is better than no car. “It works, but it’s either full blast or nothing. So, you run it until your teeth are chattering and then turn it off until you start sweating. I call it malaria simulation.”

  I decide not to respond to the college question because I have a feeling TJ wasn’t asking me to clarify. We have a staff e-mail loop and that’s where I saw his request for a ride and I knew I’d be driving right through Columbus. We exchanged exactly four e-mails giving only minor information about when and where to meet up, but my boss had added “Stanford University in the fall” to my profile on the website. TJ didn’t have a profile online yet so I knew nothing about him.

  “How long we got left to drive?” TJ yawns and stretches his legs out in front of him. He’s pretty short. I’ve got a good two inches on him, I’d guess.

  “Probably about seven hours. But we’re not expected for another twelve hours, so let me know if you want to stop anywhere.” I hold my tongue for a second to see if he has any requests and then plunge into making conversation. It will be all kinds of awkward if we just sit in silence for seven hours. “So… excited for this summer?”

  He leans forward and fiddles with the radio. “Money, place to stay, meals, free training facility—it sounds like heaven. Except for the teaching spoiled rich kids how to do a damn back handspring part.”

  I know a thing or two about being wary of spoiled rich kids. I went to school with them. I’m also best friends with one and my girlfriend would probably fit into that category, too, so I’ve learned not to judge too quickly. “I’d say more like upper middle class. Or middle class with massive credit card debt.”

  Camp is expensive as hell, so he’s sort of right. But competitive gymnastics is expensive as hell. Which makes me wonder…

  “I’m coaching the power tumbling kids this summer,” he says, as if answering my silent question.

  “That’s cool. How’d you get into tumbling?”

  “Boys and Girls club,” he says. “We started out learning everything on a tile floor in an elementary school gym and then we got those folding mats. Kids started winning competitions and some rich dude donated a spring floor. We got to learn the harder shit and some of us went to Nationals. I’m nineteen now, but they let me work out for free if I teach some classes.”

  “You’re still training?”

  “Yeah.” He settles on an AM station playing an Atlanta Braves baseball game. “What about you?”

  “I quit gymnastics years ago. They only let me help out at gym camp because my dad was way better than me. One of the directors used to compete with him. This is the first year I’m actually getting paid, which is awesome.”

  “You worked for free? And you weren’t training? Why?”

  I shrug. I’m not gonna tell him that staying with my dad over summer breaks wasn’t exactly an appealing idea for me. “The place is pretty awesome. You’ll see. And I don’t train anymore, but I still like to play around on the equipment. As for working for free, I worked during the school year. Being stuck in the middle of nowhere all summer kept me from spending my money on stupid shit. Which is how I got this fucking amazing car.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.” TJ nods toward his garbage bag of stuff in the backseat. “I got a bag of weed that sucked up almost a week’s paycheck and now I’m getting a ride from your ass. I should be saving for my own car.”

  I laugh. “Well, keep the weed on the DL. That stuff is like contraband after a few days of coaching.”

  “Noted.”

  “So… are you like in school or…”

  “Nah, I dropped out a couple years ago. Decided making money now was the better route to go.”

  “What do you do? Besides teaching classes at the Boys and Girls club.”

  His gaze drifts out the window. “Trust me, dude, you don’t want to know my day job.”

  Great. Now I have seven hours to mull that over.

  CHAPTER NINE

  KAREN

  From the rearview mirror of Jackie’s car, I can see Blair’s mom’s minivan pull up. She glances in our direction, but probably doesn’t recognize Jackie’s car, so Blair tumbles out and heads for the front door, where Grandma lets her inside.

  “Karen,” Jackie says. “Let’s finish our chat before we go inside.”

  I guess she’s working under the assumption that I’ll actually be able to get myself through the front door. This whole being afraid of my house feels so infantile and yet I can’t shake it no matter how hard I try.

  “The last thing you need to worry about is what your grandmother or best friend think about your reactions,” she says. “How you feel can’t be deemed as right or wrong and Blair has never been through what you’ve been through. She’s here for you, but she doesn’t know what you’re feeling. I’m not even certain your grandmother understands. Losing a child is different than being a child and losing your parents.”

  “What if I have another panic attack?” I turn away from the house and look at Jackie. “We can leave, right? I can try again another time?”

  Or I can let Grandma deal with the house. Yeah, that plan is sounding better and better every second. Jackie’s silent, staring straight ahead; finally she answers me. “I need you to trust me on this one. You’ll regret not doing this if you bail.”

  “How do you know? It’s just stuff, right? How important can it be compared to all the memories I have?”

  She takes a deep breath and looks at me. “I don’t normally talk about myself with patients, but I think it could help you. I know what it’s like to lose a parent suddenly, the way you and Jordan did, and I also know what’s it like to watch one slowly waste away from cancer.”

  I gape at her. I don’t know what to say. She seems too perky and well-adjusted to have been through something horrible. Will I get to that point eventually?

  “My mom got sick right after I started middle school. Breast cancer. She passed away three years later. My dad—” She takes another breath before continuing, like she’s grappling for her therapist voice. “Took it very hard. He turned to alcohol. That went on for another three years. One night, during the summer before I was starting college, he left the house completely wasted. I should have taken his keys. I should have kept him from driving.”

  My hand covers my mouth. I try to think of something to say, but Jackie gives me a sad smile and shakes her head. “My brother and I had a funeral for him, I went to college a couple weeks later and I never went back. You have your anger and I have my guilt. And yes, I know it’s not my fault that he had a drinking problem, but the idea that one tiny change in the past could have kept him alive is so hard to accept and move on from. My mother was suffering before she died. I loved her so much, I hated that she was gone, but I knew how much pain she was in. It’s so different, the two experiences.”

  “I’m sorry,” I manage to say.

  “When I was finally able to make peace with it, all I wanted was to pack up my old house and say good-bye the right way, but everything was gone. My brother got rid of it all and not having that closure really slowed my grieving process. I don’t want that for you, Karen.”

  Now her firm stance on this issue made a lot more sense. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

  “I didn’t want to influence whatever natural process of grieving you would develop for yourself. Especially with your addiction to structure and technique, I was afraid you’d try to follow a formula that wasn’t right for you.”

  My gaze travels back to the house. I don’t want to have regrets years from now. I want to be able to move on, even if today sucks. Even if feels like I might die. I lay my hand on the door handle. “Let’s do this.”

  We head across the yard, which is still carefully mowed and weed-free, thanks to the lawn service Grandma hired. I don�
��t know what I expected to feel coming inside again, but numbness wasn’t it.

  From the moment we set foot in my childhood home, it’s like I’m in a haze. Like how I felt coming out of surgery, when I had my shoulder operated on last year. I register Grandma hugging me, I answer her basic questions, I even remind myself to avoid the living room where those horrible urns sit, but I don’t really process or feel these things. I blink a few times and register Blair leading me upstairs to my room. This is what she came for, to help me pack up my bedroom.

  “I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve been in here,” Blair says, grabbing one of about thirty boxes flattened boxes Grandma must have left in here, which is totally unnecessary considering seventy percent of my bedroom ended up at Coach Bentley’s house or in his garage.

  I start to pull out of my hazy funk, remembering when I found out my parents were intoxicated the night they crashed their car. In an emotional rage, I’d ripped open every box and flung trophies and picture frames all over the garage. I mimicked Blair and picked up another box, sitting down on the floor like her, grabbing the tape she’d brought upstairs, assembling the box, and then picking up random items to place inside it.

  Blair chatters away, making nostalgic comments here and there about items in my closet while I remain silent, nodding at the appropriate times. I have no clue what Jackie and Grandma are conversing about downstairs, but she told me not to worry about anyone else besides myself today.

  After I fold and fill three boxes, the urge to get up, to be alone hits me hard. I’m thawing out. I scramble to my feet, brushing the dust off the back of my shorts. “I’ll be right back,” I tell Blair.

  She looks up at me, probably checking to make sure this isn’t one of the moments where I want her to follow me, before saying, “Okay, no problem.”

  In the hallway, I run my fingers along the bumpy textured walls like I’ve done hundreds of times before. When I was little, I called them oatmeal walls because it looked like someone tossed their oatmeal on the wall and let it dry up. The door to my parents’ bedroom is already open. I pass through the threshold but stop before going any farther. My gaze sweeps the room, my lungs already constricting. The king-sized bed is perfectly made, the lamp beside the bed turned on. Grandma must have been in here already.