Beyond Eighteen

by Gretchen de La O

  My eyes misted as I ran my fingers over the uneven edges of every card and letter. I could smell the ink, the paper, even the rubber bands that bound them. I pulled out the smaller cluster of three before I pulled the box off my lap. I looked at the first envelope. White. The edges stained with age and neglect. My name and address square in the middle. I brought my knees up, protectively guarding my soul from what I was about to endure. I dragged my fingers over the front, catching the rubber band. I pulled it off and allowed the other two envelopes to rest on my lap. I noticed the stamp under the squiggly lined postmark had the American flag with the number 33. I looked at the circle with the place and date it was mailed: Willits, CA, June 14, 2000. I looked at the next postmark on the next envelope: Sept. 8, 2000. I slid to the last envelope. It was pink with a black postmark dated Dec. 22, 2000. I looked over at the next bunch, waiting in the box and the postmark on the top said March 15, 2001. My heart plunged down into my gut. I looked up at Joanie, almost forgetting she was even sitting there.

  “They’re all sorted by month and year,” I whispered.

  Joanie dipped her head before dropping her eyes to the box. I nodded and she pushed her fingers into the letters toward the back. That banded group was so much larger. There must have been ten or so letters. She pulled back the top of the last letter, dated Oct. 18, 2011. Ten days before my grandpa died.

  “It looks like she wrote you more as the years went on,” Joanie said as she let the letter go and rubbed her hands across her knees.

  I nodded before I slipped my finger into the edge of the first letter she’d written me and pulled it across the crease, ripping it open. I pulled at the lined paper folded randomly inside.

  Dear Wilson,

  I’m sorry I can’t do this. I am a bad mom, you deserve better. Someday I hope you will understand my reasons. Listen to Grams and Gramps. They can be tough, but it’s only for your own good.

  Love,

  Me

  I flipped the half sheet of lined paper over.

  “That’s it? Nothing more?” I said, shocked at Candi’s words. Joanie held her hand out and I handed her the letter.

  There had to be more. An explanation, sentences that would comfort a little girl after her mother dumped her; but there wasn’t. All she left me were just words. Words she wrote that drove me right back to feeling like that broken, abandoned little girl. In the very first letter I opened from this box, Candi managed to freshly tear every wound she’d created in my soul. Now I had a whole box filled with letters waiting to have their way with my heart. No, thanks. I’d spent my entire life trying to heal the damage she caused and in a matter of a couple of sentences I was left reeling and broken.

  “I was eight years old, for Christ’s sake. That’s all she gave me?” I said, trying to catch my breath.

  “Wilson, honey, if she didn’t care she wouldn’t have filled a box with ten years worth of letters.” Joanie pulled another letter from a different year. “Try reading this one,” she said as she held out a bright red envelope. “The postmark is from 2002. Three years later.”

  I grabbed the envelope, looked at the date on the postmark, and noticed it was from December. Like before, I pushed my finger into the corner and ripped along the scored edge. It was a birthday card. On the front was a scary clown with red flaming hair sticking out on either side of his bald head. His forehead was home to a cluster of wrinkles as his light eyes with black painted circles around them were open super wide, his face bright white with a gigantic red nose and exaggerated red lips like Ronald McDonald. He was dressed in a shimmery purple suit and a pink triangle tie with white dots. He was holding a white cake with rainbow sprinkles and a ton of burning candles. Yellow block letters down at the bottom of the card said, “Stop clowning around.” I opened it, and in black letters that matched the front, it read, “Remember…make a wish before you blow out your candles!”

  Below that Candi had written:

  Happy 10th Birthday. I figured you’d like this instead of a Christmas card. Hazards of a Christmas birthday, I guess. I can’t believe you’re already 10. Well, hope Grams and Gramps are treating you right. Sorry no present but money is tight. Here’s a kiss, hope that’s good enough. Love, your Mom.

  Just below her writing was a smeared kiss in red lipstick.

  I felt the words strangle my throat. My heart felt like it had stopped beating and suddenly I was somewhere else. I just started to grab letter after letter, ripping them open, reading about her life without me. I could feel my heart ache, my tailbone becoming sore from sitting through each one. I continued to read as the letters from Candi evolved from a desperate kid to a self-sustaining woman. I know it’s strange, maybe even unbelievable, but I could smell her. Every place she’d been, every experience she wrote about. Every moment I wasn’t with her, spread across cardstock and lined paper. Events she experienced that were supposed to be for her and me as a family. She wrote about how hard it had been without me, how it took her three tries to get clean. She told me she never stopped thinking about me, how she met someone and was married, how she wished I was there. She told me that she went to school and is now working with young addicts, counseling them, trying to save even one girl from going through what she had. Letter after letter, the words methodically pulled her back into my life. She told me that I have a brother, Connor. That he looks just like me, and every day with him is like having me back. I kept reading for hours, the words she wrote intended for me at different stages of my life. Words that tore me apart while at the same time, somehow, finding a way to piece me back together.

  J sat with me the entire time, taking each letter after I read it and putting it back into the envelope it came out of. She was a rock. When I would stop and cry, she’d take the letter and read it out loud. She could sense when I was about to lose it; that’s when she would nudge against me and rub my back. She didn’t have to say a word. All she had to do was sit there and be with me. Three hours later, we had read through all the letters and cards. My life without my mom chronicled perfectly in a shoebox. I was exhausted, like I’d been run through a washing machine on heavy duty.

  I sat for a moment, silent, staring at the box.

  “You okay?” Joanie asked. A gap of reflection, thick with what I’d just experienced, lay between us.

  “I think so,” I answered.

  “You know what this means, right?”

  “Yeah, I do,” I whispered.

  “Your mom never gave up on you. All those years,” Joanie said.

  “Yeah. Changes things a bit,” I sighed. I stared at my grandfather’s button-up shirts and dress pants, my eyes burning from not blinking, my head searching, swimming toward some reasoning behind my grandparents keeping the letters from me.

  “What are you going to do?” Joanie asked before chewing on the corner of her bottom lip.

  “I really don’t know yet.”

  I saw images of my grandparents tiptoeing into their closet and hiding the letters from me. Why? Why would they take that from me? I guess, deep down, I knew the answer. They were only trying to protect me. Keep me safe.

  “Do you think your grandpa intended on giving you these letters?”

  “I have to believe that they were going to give them to me once I turned eighteen. There is no other reason why they would keep them and go to all that effort to sort them by year. I really think I was meant to see them, J.”

  Joanie stood up and held out her hand. I took it and she lifted me off the floor. Without having to relive the journey into my nonexistent childhood relationship with my birth mom, I gave her a hug for being my best friend in the whole world. In that moment, we both knew this was only part one of my new adult life. Tomorrow, part two…meeting with the lawyers of my grandparents’ estate.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  ~ Max ~

  Morning came faster than I expected. When I looked over at the clock, 7:55 glared at me. Shit. It felt like I had just closed my eyes. I wanted to get into the o
ffice before 8:00 so I could get as much done as possible and make my way to California to be with Wilson.

  I tossed the blankets back and let the cold morning air rake across my bare skin. Normally I sleep with boxers on, but last night, well I didn’t…besides, when the chilly morning air found its way to my erection, I gave it a moment’s thought before I decided to get up and get my ass in the shower.

  A shower was the perfect answer to jump-starting my day. It was quick, and of course productive when I soaped up my lower half.

  I knew that day was going to be my day. I had to believe everything that needed to happen was going to happen. I pulled open my closet and found my most expensive black Armani suit and white Charvet dress shirt. It was going to be a pull out all the stops kind of day. I was going to attempt to convince one of GP’s biggest accounts to not only meet with me today instead of Saturday, but I was going to persuade both Holtz and Glück that staying with GP would be the best business move ever. The hard part was going to be proving that I could be just as committed to GP as my father was. I pulled out my good luck dijon mustard yellow silk tie and slipped it around my collar, untied, before pulling on my jacket and my most expensive pair of dress shoes. Was this what I wanted? Walking around wearing clothes worth more than some people’s entire week of wages? Not really, but I was being forced to play the part. Would I wear something like this to meet with Mr. Langley? Hell, no. But I wasn’t meeting someone who was emotionally tied to GP; I was meeting with corporations that shifted loyalties with quarter profit margins and bottom lines. One thing was for sure, if I lost Holtz Oil and Glück Petroleum right now, it would be a devastating blow, and quite possibly the end of Goldstein Petroleum forever.

  I called Dan, Calvin, and Gary, and told them to meet me at the office. I wanted to go over some files before I convinced Holtz and Glück that GP was where they belonged. I looked up at the clock, it was 8:45. Damn! I wanted to call Wilson before I left. I’ll have to call between meetings. Right now I have to save my company from total devastation. Hmmm, my company…I don’t know about how I feel about that yet.

  I hustled downstairs and into the kitchen. My mom was shuffling around collecting everything she needed to make herself some coffee. She saw me and pulled another cup from the cupboard.

  “Hey, honey, you look handsome. You flying out to see Wilson today?” she asked, her eyes twinkling with anticipation. Her lips pulled into a hopeful smile before she poured two cups of coffee.

  “Ahhh, no, not right now. Something came up at GP and I have to take care of it today. This for me?” I pointed to the cup of coffee before snatching the vanilla creamer from the fridge.

  I noticed the look on her face. It was the same one she’d give my dad when he would whirlwind around the kitchen before leaving for the office.

  “Maxi, we talked about this yesterday. Your brother and Dan can handle Gary for a couple of days. You should be with Wilson, she needs you,” she said as she stirred half and half into her coffee.

  “Come on, Mom, don’t should on me this morning. I know, and I haven’t forgotten what we talked about yesterday,” I answered.

  “You called me asking for help…Well, this is me helping you. I don’t want to see you make the same mistakes your father made,” she sighed before she took a sip of her coffee. Her words covered me like honey and suddenly I wasn’t moving with the same intention as before.

  “Mistakes? Dad didn’t make mistakes,” I stated.

  “Oh, sure he did. He was young and ambitious, willing to sacrifice to make GP the best company it could be. You know, your father was just about your age when your grandfather started grooming him to take over GP. He wasn’t much older than you when your grandfather became sick and had to retire, leaving your father in the same predicament that you’re in now.” She took another sip from the coffee mug she had clutched between both hands. She leaned back against the counter, ready to tell me whatever I was willing to ask.

  “Yeah, but Grandpa was still alive and was able to help Dad,” I mumbled.

  “Not really, Maxi, your grandfather had a stroke. It was months before he was able to talk again. So your father had to do everything. That was the hardest couple of years of our marriage. Long days at the office, meetings, and emergency business trips every other week. I was left on my own…a lot. I was a new mom, at home with a toddler and seven months pregnant…with you.” She set down her coffee, snatched my tie, and started to flip, tuck, and tie it.

  “Your father loved his family. We were the most important thing in his life, and even though he was gone a lot, his commitment to giving us the best life he could was his legacy. Maxi, you don’t have to make that your legacy. If what you told me yesterday is true, and Wilson is the one, then learn from your father’s mistakes. Learn to balance your life with your career. GP will survive, it always has. What you have with that girl…make that your legacy.”

  “Ma…I—”

  She held up her hand to stop me. “Maxi, do what you feel is right. I’m just telling you how I felt when I was your age. We go through life, fearing the judgment of others because of the choices we’ve made, and when you reach my age, you look back and wonder what the hell were you afraid of. I’ve lived a lifetime with the choices your father and I have made. Stop worrying about the judgment of others and start living your life for yourself. In the end, the only thing that will matter is that you did what was in your heart,” she said. Her eyes glistened and her lips quivered. The muscles in her cheeks struggled to pull her mouth into a smile as she tapped her hand across my chest, right where my heart was both breaking and pounding at the same time.

  I stood there for a moment, taking in every word she said. With every blink that released the tears from her eyelashes and every twitch of her mouth I realized just how much my mom had lived. How, even through the pain of losing her husband, she found a way to make me realize my happiness was important.

  “Thanks, Ma,” I said as I leaned down and kissed her cheek. “I’ll think about what you said, I promise. I’d better get going. I love you,” I whispered.

  “Oh, sweets, I love you too,” she whispered back before I pulled out of her embrace and walked out.

  Funny how I’d lived my entire life judging the choices of my parents and suddenly when I found myself facing the same type of situation, their choices were the only tangible experiences I could grasp.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  ~ Wilson ~

  The morning sun filled the room, making a promise that it would be a better day. It had to be, because in a matter of three hours the night before, everything I’d believed about my life had become something entirely different. Every emotion I’d stuffed deep into my gut my whole life was pulled up, dragged out, drudged through, reconsidered, and exposed. More questions pummeled me in my sleep. Dreams of when I was little twisted and snarled with fantasies of being raised by my mom—visions of going to carnivals, birthday parties, and movies tore through my mind. My throat was sore and my mouth drier than a cotton field. My head pounded, promising me that it was only going to start hurting worse if I didn’t find some Motrin quickly.

  I sat up, expecting to see J still asleep next to me, but she wasn’t. I could only imagine how crazy it was for her last night too. She’d been right there with me my entire life. She was the only person who knew everything about my life. Now she truly is the only other person who knows what each letter said, each promise Candi made, each life-altering event I was supposed to have, each brick that was supposed to create my life from the day I was born; bricks that were never used in building my life.

  I pushed the covers back and made my way to the bathroom. I glanced at the closet. Everything looked normal. Gramps’s sweaters were still stacked perfectly on his side of the closet. No box, no letters spread about the cedar floor. It looked…just as my grandfather left it. For a millisecond I thought maybe last night had been a dream, until I saw the box on my grandma’s dresser. J must have cleaned everything up after
I fell asleep. My lungs tightened against my ribs, tears swelled in my eyes, and my heart clung to the ledge in the back of my throat. I have the best friend in the world.

  I headed downstairs. My feet were freezing. I could hear J talking to someone on the phone and every couple of seconds the crumpling of newspaper.

  “I miss you too. I wish you could be here. Maybe someday, it’s beautiful.”

  I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.

  “Oh, stop. Well, you’re pretty handsome…I don’t know how long I’m going to be here. Nick, she needs me…yeah, it was pretty heavy last night. She really has a lot to process…No, he’s not here. Truthfully, I don’t know if he is coming anytime soon. He’s dealing with some family stuff too.”

  Really, I didn’t mean to overhear any of that. I couldn’t go barging in right then. My heart was thundering in my chest and my head was arguing with every muscle in my body, telling them to move.

  “I don’t think we are doing anything for New Year’s tonight...well, that’s flattering but I don’t think that would be a good idea…No, bad idea…WHAT? Are you serious? You did not!” She stopped working on the stove and froze in a standing position.

  What? What the hell is he saying? What did he do? I swear I didn’t mean to eavesdrop…

  “Well, it’s totally romantic. But I have to be here. Wilson needs me.”

  That was my cue. I made sure to make enough noise to alert her that I was coming. I shuffled past J and she smiled at me as she continued to make a fire in the stove.

  “Hey, Wilson just came in. I have to go…I will talk to you later…alright, you too…bye.”