Chapter 16 Reece #2
“The first time was three weeks before I left. Before the apartment had been entered. Back when I still thought I was coming back in six months. I sat at our kitchen table at three in the morning. You were asleep on the other side of the bedroom door. Six feet away. I wrote you a letter.”
“What did it say.”
“It said I love you. It said I am about to do something stupid. I am going to be gone for a while. I am going to come back. Wait for me. It said something like that. I wrote it twice. I crossed it out twice. I tore the pages into squares and ran them under the faucet until the ink dissolved.”
“Why.”
“Because if you got it and waited, and then I did not come back, the waiting would have been the thing. The waiting would have been worse than the way I haven’t known.
I could not do that to you. I could not.
Griffin. I could not give you a sentence that said come back if I was not coming back.
Mendez hadn’t told me yet. I still thought I was coming.
But I could not promise it. I could not promise you something I might not be able to give.
The not-promising made the letter useless. So I ran it under the faucet.”
He does not say anything.
“That was the first time.”
“Tell me the second.”
“The second was eighteen months in. I was in the second town. Not this one — the one before. I’d been there a year.
I was — Griffin. I was bad. Had been bad for months.
Wasn’t eating. Wasn’t sleeping. Sitting in my apartment for whole weekends not moving.
I’d decided I was going to break the rules.
Decided I didn’t care. I’d write you a postcard with no signature and no return address.
One sentence. I am alive. That was all. I’d decided you deserved to have it.
Decided it for a week. Bought the postcard.
Bought a stamp. Walked to the post office on a Saturday morning, stood in front of the slot, postcard in my hand. ”
“And.”
“And I thought about who might be watching the post office.”
He looks at me.
“I don’t know if anyone was watching the post office.
I’ve never known. The program had told me they did not think anyone would be looking that far out, that long after.
But the program had been wrong about a lot of things.
I was standing in a post office with a postcard that had your address on it.
Your address, Griffin. Your name. I am alive.
Anyone who picked it up before it got to you would have a thread — a city, me, you.
The postcard wasn’t, Griffin. It wasn’t a letter to you.
It was a way of telling whoever was looking exactly where I was, and exactly who I’d be looking for if I were them.
I stood in front of the slot for I do not know how long.
A long time. Long enough that the woman behind the counter started looking at me.
I put the postcard in my coat pocket. I walked out. I went home. I tore it up.”
He is not looking at me. He is looking at his hand on the chair.
“That was the second time.”
“That was eighteen months in.”
“Yes.”
“You stood in a post office for I do not know how long with a postcard with my name on it.”
“Yes.”
“And you tore it up.”
“Yes.”
“Reed.”
“Griffin.”
“Why are you telling me this now and not on the sidewalk. Not in this apartment three weeks ago. Why now.”
I look at him.
He does not say anything.
“I tore up two letters and a postcard, Griffin. In two years. Not sending them was what I had to give you. Every day for two years I didn’t send you something.
Griffin. The not-sending was me choosing you.
I left and I kept choosing you. I chose you when I crossed out the letter at three in the morning.
I chose you when I put the postcard in my pocket.
I chose you every day I did not call. The leaving was not the end of choosing you.
Leaving was choosing him. I’ve been choosing you the entire time.
Or trying to. Or — yeah. Choosing you. I did not know how to tell you that.
I do not know how to tell you that now. I am telling you anyway because you asked. ”
He is very quiet.
“I should have told you three weeks ago,” I say. “I am sorry I didn’t.”
He sits in the chair. He does not move. The light from the desk lamp is on the side of his face. The thumbprint on the half-glass of water is still on the half-glass of water. “Reed.”
“Yeah.”
“The postcard.”
“Yes.”
“You stood in front of the slot.”
“Yes.”
“For how long.”
“I don’t know. Long enough that the woman started looking.”
“Did you…“
“What.”
“Did you almost. Did you almost let it go.”
I look at him.
“Yes,” I say. “Three times. I’d lift the postcard to the slot and stop. Lower it. Do it again. The third time I put it in my pocket and walked out because I knew if I lifted it a fourth my hand was going to do it without me.”
He puts his hand over his face.
He puts his hand over his face and doesn’t move it for a long time.
I don’t move either. I’ve given him the thing and he is sitting with it.
After a while he takes his hand away. His face is wet.
Not crying. Wet. He has not been making a sound.
The tears have just been doing what they were going to do.
“Okay,” he says.
I don’t answer. I wait.
“I need you to leave.”
“Okay.”
“I am not. I am not asking you to never come back. I am asking you to leave for tonight. I have to think.”
I nod.
I get up. I go to the door. I put on my coat. I look back at him. He is still in the chair. His face is still wet. He has not wiped it.
“Griffin.”
“Yes.”
He doesn’t say anything else.
“Go.”
I go. I close the door behind me. I go down the stairs. I walk home in the cold. I do not call Mendez.