The Mailbox

by Marybeth Whalen

  When Lindsey asked him earlier to tell her about his daughter, an image had filled his mind: Nikki stomping around in red cowboy boots. After dropping Lindsey off, he went straight to the garage to check on the shoes. He surveyed them all, watching a little girl grow up before his eyes.

  “How’d it go?” he heard his mother’s voice behind him.

  “Fine,” he said, not turning around. He wasn’t ready to talk about his night with Lindsey.

  “I heard your truck pull in, but I didn’t ever hear you come in. I figured you went for a walk on the beach or were up on the roof deck,” she said.

  “Nah. I just remembered these shoes and started thinking about our old tradition. I almost forgot these things were out here.” He paused, running his fingers across the toes of the cowboy boots, remembering Nikki’s smile when she opened them that Christmas. “I guess I just needed to make sure they were still here.”

  “They still are, Campbell. And so is she.” His mother’s words echoed Lindsey’s. She patted him on the shoulder and, though he couldn’t see her, he could hear her smile. “You’re getting some pretty significant second chances this summer, Son. Don’t shy away from the opportunities you’ve been given.”

  “But what if I don’t deserve what I’ve been given?” he asked, turning to look at his mother in the dimly lit room.

  She smiled again, her mouth barely turned up at the edges. “Honey, none of us get what we deserve. That’s why they call it grace.”

  He blinked back at her, trying to absorb the weight of her words.

  She crossed her arms in front of her and winked at him. “It’s late. I’m going to bed, and you should do the same.” He listened as his mother’s footsteps disappeared up the stairs into the house. He flipped off the light and went to bed, thinking about red shoes and mailboxes, and how to believe that grace was meant for him.

  w

  That night Campbell dreamed of watching Nikki ice-skate as a little girl. He woke up with the vivid memory of how it felt to watch her glide and turn across the icy back deck. She didn’t need actual ice skates—her little red tennis shoes worked just fine. He would stay outside as long as he could, but she always outlasted him.

  “Beach bums aren’t made for this kind of weather,” he would tell her, then venture inside to the welcome warmth. Nikki didn’t seem fazed by the cold. He would man his post at the window, watching her while he sipped coffee, thinking how there just wasn’t a more beautiful sight in the world than that little girl. Standing there in the dead of winter, summer felt very far away. As if it would never come at all.

  The idea to turn the deck into an ice-skating rink came one of those winter nights when the temperature dropped to below freezing. In his first weekends alone with her after the divorce he worried they would be like strangers without Ellie as their conduit. He worried they would run out of conversation, left with nothing to do but stare at each other awkwardly. As they bundled up in sweatshirts and wrapped themselves in blankets to stay warm, Nikki mused that it was too bad the ocean didn’t freeze so they could ice-skate on it. Shyly she told him that she had been taking ice-skating lessons at her new home with Oz and her mother. She wanted to show him what she’d learned. In that instant, he knew what he needed to do. He told her to wait as he ran outside, lugging the old hose up the deck stairs and blasting the deck with water, which froze nearly on impact. Moments later he came in, bowed low, and said, “Your wish is my command. Skate away, my lady.”

  From then on, whenever she stayed with him on winter weekends, she would anxiously watch for the temperatures to dip low enough to freeze, though it didn’t happen very often. He installed a thermometer just outside the window, which she watched intently anytime it got the slightest bit cold. Just like that, they had something that united them that was theirs alone. He foolishly thought it would always be enough. That somehow she would always see him there, in her mind’s eye, watching her through the window, delighting in her every move as she skated her problems away in red tennis shoes.

  Campbell lay in bed for a few moments, trying to savor the purity of the dream, not wanting real life to fully wake him up. He heard the morning sounds he had heard all his life—gulls outside the window, his mom banging around in the kitchen, the coffee percolating. He rolled over and buried his head under the covers. And that was when his night with Lindsey came back to him. He smiled wide at the way the night ended: the awkward kiss he planted on her cheek in front of her kids, the rowdy children she wrangled up the stairs after he dropped them off, the sight of her waving apologetically as she closed the door. The evening had been as close to perfect as he could have dreamed of, a beginning to build on. Before he started his day, he thanked God for new beginnings.

  He rose from his bed and pulled up the shade to find the day glorious, the sky a perfect blue, the kind a child would draw in a picture, complete with fat, fluffy clouds.

  “Dad?” he heard Nikki calling him from the hall.

  “Just a sec, honey.” He threw on his pajama pants and T-shirt and opened his door to find her at the top of the stairs. “Yeah?” Her thin body still startled him. How could she think that was beautiful?

  “Um, can I talk to you?”

  He waved her into his room and pointed to the easy chair. “Sure, have a seat.” Next to her elbow sat a stack of papers he needed to remember to put away. He had pulled them out the night Lindsey came by his house and had fallen asleep reading through them.

  Nikki sat, nervously glancing around.

  “Hey, Nik, thanks for helping out with Lindsey’s kids last night,” he told her. “Grandma said you were great with them.”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, I like kids. They aren’t so complicated, you know?”

  He laughed at those words coming from his own daughter’s mouth. When he looked at her, a kid is exactly what he saw. “I agree.”

  “So you really like that woman, huh?”

  “Um, well, it’s kind of complicated with Lindsey. We knew each other a long time ago, so I guess you could say that we’re just getting to know each other again.” An image sprang to his mind of the way she looked after he kissed her. His face colored as he pushed the thought from his mind.

  “Dad, you can’t fool me! It’s written all over your face!” She laughed and slumped back in the chair, her elbow knocking the papers to the floor. He didn’t move to pick them up for fear he would break the spell that had her talking to him, laughing in his presence.

  He hung his head in mock shame. “I guess I’m found out then,” he said. He looked up. “Does that bother you?”

  “Actually it’s a relief.”

  He laughed in shock. “A relief?”

  “I don’t want you to be alone. I’ve always felt sorry for you here, with no one except Grandma for company. I mean, she’s great, but I always wanted more for you. When I was little, I felt bad leaving you here after I would come for a visit. I knew you were lonely, and I never understood why you chose to remain alone. I wanted you to have a life like Mom did—someone special to be with, maybe even other children, all of that stuff.” She looked away, out the window at the clouds floating by. “I used to cry when I had to leave, because I felt so sorry for you. Though I couldn’t have explained it then—I felt like you deserved happiness.” She looked at him, and for the first time since she’d been there, he caught a glimpse of his daughter—the person behind the diagnosis of anorexia. His heart filled with hope like sails catching the wind.

  He choked on his words before he could force them out. “Thank you, sweetheart. That’s good to hear.”

  “Anyway, Dad, I came to ask you if you would come to my counseling session today. Lisa thought it would be a good idea.” She paused and then added, “I mean, and I do too.” She cleared her throat. “If you want to, I mean.”

  The wallflower was finally being invited to dance.
He could almost hear the door to her heart creaking open, the rusty hinges groaning with the effort. She had only cracked the door, but it was enough to let in the air and light. He couldn’t walk through it yet, but he was getting closer.

  Chapter 27

  Sunset Beach

  Summer 2004

  All day Lindsey fought the urge to just “happen” by Campbell’s place. She busied herself with cleaning up the beach house, attempting to distract her mind from dwelling on him—the way he looked at her, how familiar he seemed. She’d replayed last night’s events countless times. A schoolgirl all over again, she stopped just short of doodling his name in her journal.

  Finally, after resisting the urge all morning, she put on running clothes and sheepishly headed toward his house. She knew he would see right through her little ruse, but she didn’t care if it meant they’d be in close proximity. The point was to be with him again. How she made that happen didn’t really matter.

  She jogged the distance to his house, the sound of her feet keeping time. How often had she orchestrated this kind of encounter when she was fifteen and sixteen years old? Turns out she had not outgrown the behavior.

  When she rounded the corner to his house, she noticed his truck missing from the driveway. Disappointed, she decided not to turn around but to complete her run down his street. Running past the house, she heard a familiar voice call out, “Lindsey!” She slowed down slightly and shielded her eyes to see LaRae waving at her from the front porch. LaRae set down her watering can and waved Lindsey over, grinning ear to ear. Before Lindsey had even made it up the porch steps, LaRae began talking. “I’m so glad you and Campbell had such a lovely time last night,” she said, seeming as giddy about the whole thing as Lindsey felt.

  “It’s nice to see you, Mrs. Forrester,” Lindsey said with a smile, not wanting to seem too eager. “Thank you so much for watching my children! They had fun with you.”

  She waved her hand in the air. “Honey, that was nothing! I’ll watch them anytime if you’ll take Campbell off my hands! He’s the real handful.”

  Lindsey laughed, and LaRae grinned back at her. “Now don’t get me wrong. I love Campbell and I don’t know what I would do without him. But I do wish he’d meet someone and move on with his life. He’s been alone too long.” Her eyes got a wistful look. “Campbell’s daddy and I were so happy. I hate that he never saw Campbell find that same kind of love. It’s what he wanted for him, and I keep hoping for it still.” She looked at her meaningfully. “But he never seemed interested. And I finally understand why.”

  Lindsey stared back at her blankly and answered, “Why?” before she could stop herself. Her heart pounded in her chest even though she had stopped running.

  “Well, honey, because of you, of course. I think he’s been hoping he’d find his way back to you, or you to him. Whichever.” She gave her a once-over. “Come on inside and I’ll get you some water,” she said. “It’s awful hot to be running right now.”

  Lindsey followed her inside, wondering if LaRae had guessed that her run was really a ploy to see Campbell. “I guess he’s not here, then?” she asked.

  LaRae frowned slightly. “No, he took Nikki to her counseling session. You know about all that, right?” she asked.

  Lindsey paused before nodding, not wanting to drag anything shameful or embarrassing out of Campbell’s mother, yet hungry to know more about his life, all the parts she had missed out on.

  “Well, then you know that Nikki has anorexia. She nearly starved herself to death and now she’s in counseling. He takes her every day.” She handed Lindsey a glass of ice water and gulped some down herself. Setting the empty glass on the counter, she added, “She has emotional issues to work on.”

  “Don’t we all?” Lindsey blurted out.

  LaRae smiled and nodded. “Yes, honey. I suspect you’re right about that. Nikki’s problems are just more—” she searched for the right word—“urgent than the rest of ours.”

  “You must be crazy about her,” Lindsey said, noticing the tenderness in the way LaRae spoke her name.

  “Absolutely smitten, yes. She may not have come into the world the way I would have wanted, especially not for my son. But we pulled together and made the best of it. Because that’s what families do.

  “I guess it was especially around the time that Ellie took off and we had Nikki to ourselves that I got so crazy about her. She had always lived with me, but Campbell and Ellie took care of her. When Ellie took off, we had such a sweet time together.” She smiled. “I even took her to church, ’cause Lord knows her parents never did. I thought it might make a difference in the long run if I could get as much of the good Lord into her while I had the chance.”

  “I’m sure it did,” Lindsey offered.

  LaRae nodded and swiped at her brow, laughing nervously. “Well, maybe. But it ended up doing the most good for Campbell. He started going with me and Nikki every Sunday—mainly, I’m thinking, because he didn’t know what else to do—and he’s never quit going since. As a boy he always seemed resistant, rebellious, to anything to do with God or church. But that boy soon became a broken man who’d made a wreck of his life. He knew it was time to start cleaning things up, letting God put things back together for him.” She smiled. “He’s made a lot of progress, but he still struggles with shame over what happened. He still wonders if God really does give second chances. In spite of what He seems to be doing this summer. I think God’s up to something. Don’t you?” She raised her eyebrows as Lindsey nodded and tried to stop the color from rising in her cheeks.

  “Mrs. Forrester?” Lindsey impulsively asked her, an idea coming to her mind. She felt buoyed by the news about Campbell’s faith. Could it be possible that they had both drawn close to God over the years? “Would you mind if I left Campbell a note?” She wanted to write down what she felt, to tell him he did deserve a second chance, and leave it for him to find when he came home. She hoped to somehow capture how hopeful she felt. She had come to Sunset to write about endings and in a few days’ time the subject had changed to new beginnings. She shook her head in amazement.

  “Well sure, honey. Now let’s see … I don’t have any paper down here, but I know that Campbell does a lot of writing and reading upstairs. Why don’t you just go on up to his room and you should find a bunch of paper right there on his desk. Besides, if you leave it down here, he might never see it. Lay it on his desk; that’s a safer bet.” She waved in the direction of the stairs. “I’ll be outside messing around in the yard if you need me,” she said as she tromped out the door in her heavy gardening clogs. The back of her shirt read “Sea Turtle Rescuers Do It In The Dark.” Lindsey smiled as she watched her go.

  Lindsey climbed the stairs, remembering the only other time she’d ever been upstairs in Campbell’s house. Campbell’s parents were gone one night that second summer and the two of them came there, despite the fact that his parents had told them not to. He held her hand as he led her up to his room, both of them nervous over the potential of what could happen in his empty house, in his empty bedroom. She remembered they sat on his bed and kissed, their hearts thrumming so loudly in their chests each could hear the other one’s.

  It was Campbell who stopped them; Campbell who asked if she wouldn’t mind just going to find the other kids at the arcade. They both nearly ran out of the house, grateful for the reprieve from what could have happened. She smiled at the memory of two nervous kids somehow doing the right thing. That night, Lindsey remembered, she had felt that she had never loved him more. He protected her. He respected her.

  Campbell’s room looked different than she remembered. The paraphernalia of a teen boy—rock-star posters and sports mementos—had disappeared. Instead a queen-sized bed dominated the small room, along with a desk, a dresser, and an easy chair with a table beside it. She imagined Campbell sitting there to read or think. Did he ever think
of her?

  A painting of a beach scene graced one wall. As she looked at it closer, she realized it must have been an original watercolor. It featured the mailbox, with a girl sitting on the bench beside it, writing. The girl looked remarkably like … her. Lindsey stood in front of the picture, remembering, and realized that the resemblance was no accident.

  She saw a pad of paper on the desk and moved toward it to begin her letter. Still wondering about the picture and also wondering what to say in the letter, she noticed a pile of papers scattered on the floor near the easy chair and bent down to pick them up for Campbell. She assumed they had been blown off the desk by the breeze from the window. As she picked up the pages, her heart began to beat wildly in her chest, as if her body already knew before her brain could register it. She recognized her own handwriting as she flipped through the papers. Summer 1992, Dear Kindred Spirit. Summer 2000, Dear Kindred Spirit. Summer 1986, Dear Kindred Spirit.

  A lifetime worth of letters. Her letters.

  The room started to spin, and she sat down on the easy chair. How? Why? Questions floated through her brain with no answers attached. She looked down at the letters in her hands, noticed them trembling. Her heart pounded as it brought rise to a sense of injustice. How could he have betrayed her? Again?

  Not thinking, she began to fling the papers all over the room, scattering them like large bits of confetti, the mess a calling card that she’d been there. She had seen what he was hiding, what he took without permission. Turning from his room, she ran out the door, down the steps, and out of his house. She bolted past his mother in the front yard and didn’t even wave when LaRae hollered good-bye. Lindsey ran and ran and ran until her body gave out. But when she stopped to take a breath—about halfway to the beach house—the horrible feelings were still there. It seemed she couldn’t outrun those.

  Summer 2003

  Dear Kindred Spirit,

  I feel a sense of urgency today, Kindred Spirit. I really need to talk to you. I just wish we could sit across a table with a cup of coffee between us and have you tell me what to do. As I walked here, I noticed several happy couples laughing together, their hands all over each other—some to an embarrassing degree. Grant says I have become a religious fuddy-duddy, but come on, people. There are children on the beach.