Chapter Sixteen
Libby glared at the box sitting across the one-room apartment, but it didn’t melt into a pile of ashes. She planned to carry it over to a cubicle on the far wall and shove it in there until she was ready to deal with it, but instead, she carried it to the coffee table. She slipped her fingernail under a strip of brown packing tape, but she couldn’t force herself to go any further. She sat down on the sofa and gave herself a stern talking to about not being such a wimp.
“If I can shoot all those moving targets, I can do this. Why is this so difficult?” she muttered.
Fancy jumped up on the sofa and cocked her head to one side, then leaned against Libby’s leg.
“Thanks for the support—and to be honest, I only shot the pistol a total of nine times, but that was enough to show me that I wouldn’t miss if I ever needed to use a gun.” Her voice sounded nervous in her own ears.
You should have opened it years ago. Victoria’s tone now was exactly the same as it had been in the evenings when June and Jeanie were late getting to the house to pick her up. If her grandmother had been addicted to drugs rather than gambling, she would have been pacing the floor, waiting for her dealers to bring her a fix.
“You don’t know how many times I’ve almost thrown this whole box away, so get out of my head. I’ll treat it like the Band-Aids that you ripped off my scrapes. Just grab it and yank,” Libby said as she pulled the first strip of duct tape from the top.
She got the next length of tape started, but then her hands began to shake again. Did she really want to know what secrets were hiding inside? Did she even care? There was no doubt that it held mementos of the past—things that had inflicted pain on Libby. Minilee had said that the scars from the past didn’t have to dictate her future. Would opening it cause her even more pain, or would it bring a modicum of closure?
Her phone rang, and it startled her so badly that she dropped the tape like it was a red-hot poker. She picked it up from the sofa’s armrest, saw that the call was from Amanda, and hit the accept button.
“Hey, girl, how are things in Austin?” Libby asked.
“You sound out of breath,” Amanda said. “Were you making out with that handsome boss of yours?”
“Lord no!” Libby gasped. “I’m making myself open the box!”
“What box? You mean that old one marked For Libby on the side?” Amanda asked. “Why didn’t you open it before now? Hang up. I’ll FaceTime you.”
Libby ended the call, shot another dirty look at the thing, and wished she had left it behind in Austin with what she had tossed into the dumpster while she waited.
“You look like you’re so mad, you could eat liver, and we both know you hate it. What’s wrong?” Amanda asked when she appeared on Libby’s screen.
“You remember how those last two years of college were for me? All those horrible calls and trips to the financial aid office? You picked up the phone more than once. I was—I am—angry with her for gambling away all my college money, my high school paychecks, and my father’s insurance money on top of that.” She stopped for a breath, then went on. “I either had to take out student loans or else quit and go to work. You know the rest.”
“I know—but, girl, you should still have opened it years ago. We are best friends”—Amanda’s finger was a blur as she shook it at Libby—“and I’ve told you my whole life story. You’ve cried with me more than once. You probably needed to go to therapy back then and likely could use a few sessions now. You are the strongest woman I know, but all of us need to talk things out with someone who isn’t partial.”
“Thank you, but I’m working through it, and the ladies across the street are helping me.”
“So, what’s in the box?” Amanda asked.
Libby closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see the thing. “I haven’t opened it, but I promise I will tell you all about it when I do. Now, let’s talk about you.”
“John’s got most of his stuff moved in, and I can tell it’s going to be an adjustment, but I’m so happy. And I’ve loved the homemade cards and notes you’ve sent. I can’t wait to get to the mailbox every day to see if there’s something there for me.” Amanda’s voice left no doubt that she was on cloud nine.
A small stab of jealousy shot through Libby, but she pushed it back so she could be excited for her friend. “I’m happy for you.”
“This won’t change our friendship. We might not talk every night like we’ve been doing, but we will make up for it at least once a week. You know how I hate watching sports, so on Sunday afternoons, while John has his friends over to see whatever games are on, we can have a girls’ time out,” Amanda promised.
“Yes, we will.” Libby forced a smile. But something told her that in time, the phone calls or texts would get further and further apart, and she didn’t mention that she would be working Sunday afternoons. Their lives had already started down different paths, and soon they would have little to talk about when they reconnected.
“Okay, then, call me when you get up the courage to see what your grandmother left for you,” Amanda said. “Hugs to you from me.”
“Hugs back at you,” Libby said and ended the call.
A strip of tape dangled off the side of the box, but Libby didn’t jump right up and finish the job she had started before she was interrupted by Amanda’s call. Maybe the phone ringing at the exact time it did was an omen that she should forget about the contents, carry the whole thing out to the burning barrel behind Opal’s house, and set it on fire.
Victoria’s voice tormented her. You’ve never been one to take risks. I’m surprised you even went for the interview in Sawmill. Open the damn box so I can rest in peace.
“So, this is more about you than it is about me?” Libby muttered. “Why would that surprise me?”
She waited for a full minute, but Victoria didn’t have anything more to say. She waited for a little longer, until Fancy awoke and jumped off her lap. Her little toenails made clicking sounds as she walked across the floor toward her food bowl. The noise reminded Libby of her grandmother’s long, bright red fingernails hitting the keyboard as she entered data into the computer. It seemed like the only way Victoria would ever allow Libby to have peace of mind was for her to look in the box.
She leaned forward, grabbed the loose end of the tape, and gave it a hard tug. The top layer of paper came off with it, leaving a long white stripe on the dingy cardboard. She didn’t give herself time to think about it—she threw the lid off with such force that it scooted across the floor. Fancy whipped around and growled when it came to rest beside her water bowl.
“Sorry about that,” Libby said and peeked into the box.
No eerie music played in her head. All in all, it was more than a little bit anticlimactic.
The first item she pulled out was a little pink cotton gown that had tiny buttons down the front. She recognized her grandmother’s flowery handwriting in the note attached with a safety pin. This is the outfit you wore home from the hospital when you were born.
How did you feel about that? Libby wondered. Were you excited to have a new granddaughter? And how did my father react to being a dad at such a young age? Did he think his life was over?
The next item was a pink blanket, and it also had a note: June crocheted this, and we used it to wrap you in when we brought you home.
She laid both aside and went through more items: her school report cards, a small box with her first tooth and a tiny baby ring, pictures of her and her father on the front porch of the house and one of Libby waving goodbye to him. She studied that photograph for several minutes. Quinton was on the edge of it, and the expression on his face seemed to her to be one of relief. He had done his duty and come back to Jefferson for a holiday—most likely in the spring since the fancy little dress Libby was wearing looked like something Victoria would have bought her for Easter—and now he could escape back to the life he really liked.
“That was just months before he died. I wasn’t even three years old, and he was leaving for his final year.” She held the picture up to see it better. “I look nothing like him. He had blondish-red hair and brown eyes. I must have taken more after my mother.”
She dug through what was left and found a couple of faded awards she had won in spelling bees, copies of her birth certificate, and her social security card. Her whole life up until she was eighteen was right there.
“But my future doesn’t have to be so small,” she muttered.
The last thing she picked up was an envelope with her name on the front: To Elizabeth Victoria. Why hadn’t her grandmother used her last name as well? When she had been upset with Libby, she always raised her voice and yelled, “Elizabeth Victoria O’Dell!”
Libby ripped open the envelope and expected to pull out a sheaf of coloring pages she had done as a child, but she found a letter instead. She leaned back on the sofa and read:
Dear Libby,
If you are reading this, June will have given you these things, and I am dead. There are things you need to know, but I didn’t want to tell you or even admit them. However, you are an adult now, and it’s time you knew the truth. I’ll go back to when I married Vance. Neither of us knew he had inherited a heart condition from his father. Everyone just thought that his dad died of a heart attack at a young age, but the knowledge and treatment of something called familial dilated cardiomyopathy changed a lot in the next few years. Too bad it didn’t change fast enough for my Vance. He died at age thirty, leaving me with Quinton to raise by myself. I never forgave him for that.
Libby laid the letter aside for a few minutes before she picked it up again.
Quinton was ten that year, and immediately after Vance’s funeral, I took him to the doctor to see if he had the condition, and he did. But there was medicine and ways to treat the disease, so I wasn’t too worried about it after that. Then he went to college, stopped taking his medicine, started smoking and drinking and gained weight—all things that he shouldn’t have done. The crazy thing is that it was a car wreck that killed him, not his heart condition. He and his best friend from right here in Jefferson had been out drinking, and Daniel lost control of the vehicle he was driving. They were both dead by the time the police got to the scene.
It’s unusual for a young child to show evidence of that inherited heart condition, but I had you checked out by experts and was assured that your heart was just fine.
Libby heaved a sigh of relief and kept reading.
That sounded some warning bells in my head that I couldn’t get past, so I got a DNA kit, took some hair from Quinton’s brush, and swabbed your cheek. A couple of months later, I found out that you were not his child. Both your parents were dead, and I was left again with a kid to raise. This time, it wasn’t even my own blood. I was so angry that I had already spent almost three years raising a granddaughter that I didn’t want, and that Quinton was supposed to take responsibility for when he finished school and had a good job. You had upset my whole way of life, and I didn’t feel like I could do a damn thing about it. If I sent you to an orphanage or gave you up for adoption, I would be looked down on by the whole town, and certainly June and Jeanie. Facing Vance’s death would be easier by far than losing my best friends.
Tears began to flow down Libby’s cheeks and drip onto her shirt. No wonder she had felt like a soul with no home all these years, and now she could understand why Victoria wouldn’t let her call her Grandma or any other form of endearment. Libby wondered who her father was and whether she could find him if she tried. She swiped the tears away, laid the first page of the letter to the side, and went on to read the second one.
So I made the best of a bad situation. I gave you a home, a roof over your head, and food, but I couldn’t make myself love you. Every time I looked at you, I felt betrayed. Did Quinton know that you weren’t his and he lied to me? I asked myself that for a couple of years, but the dead do not answer questions. Then, as you grew older and taller, and your hair turned darker and darker, I realized exactly who you belonged to—his best friend, Daniel Griffin, and the boy was as dead as my son and the girl who died giving birth to you.
“My biological name is Griffin!” Libby slapped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes went back to the name on the letter: Griffin. She frowned, but she couldn’t remember anyone with that last name in Jefferson—at least, no one that she knew.
I imagine that you are in shock by now and wondering about your biological family. Close that door and look no further. Daniel was a foster child.
Libby wiped away tears flowing down her cheeks again. In essence, she had two families, and yet had none. One tear dropped onto the letter and left a smudge. She didn’t even try to dry it, just kept reading.
But to be absolutely sure, I had your DNA run against a toothbrush that he always kept at our house. I was right. The test came back 99.9 percent positive. The only thing I can imagine is that your mother had no idea which boy you belonged to, and she named Quinton because he had a better homelife than Daniel did. Whatever the reason, I was stuck with the job of raising you, and I was not happy about it. I apologize for all the times when I left you alone. I hope that you will forgive me and find some form of closure in understanding my reasons for everything. Like why I used your money to gamble. You didn’t belong to me, so the money shouldn’t be yours anyway. I wish you all the best, though, Libby. I have to admit, I wish Quinton hadn’t insisted on naming you after me and your maternal grandmother, whose name was also Elizabeth. Your mother’s name was the same, but she went by Liza.
When you take risks, you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important, so don’t be afraid to dive into the deep water. That’s the best advice I can give you.
Maybe we’ll meet again on the other side.
Victoria
Libby read through the whole letter two more times before she folded it carefully and laid it on top of the pink baby blanket. She felt as if she were in a vacuum where everything was gray and there were no emotions at all except an abundance of tears she couldn’t control. Sobs came so fast and furious that she couldn’t breathe. Then anger set in, and she picked up a throw pillow and slammed her fist into it, again and again, until she was exhausted.
So many emotions flooded through her that she couldn’t control them. Her thoughts were a jumbled mess, jumping from wondering about her biological parents to whether she should change her name. She didn’t even realize she was pacing from the sofa to the bed, to the front room, and back again until she had made the loop half a dozen times. Finally, she saw that she’d left a mess on the coffee table and stopped to put everything back into the box.
She tossed in the letter first and then noticed another piece of paper lying at the bottom. She picked it up and turned it over to see a picture of her father—no, that wasn’t right ... a picture of Quinton—with a young man and a pretty young lady with him. On the back, in faded pencil writing, were the words Quinton, Daniel, and Liza on the way to the Christmas formal. She hurriedly flipped it back over and studied it carefully. Daniel was several inches taller than Quinton, and he had dark hair and blue eyes. Liza was a short girl with black hair and clear blue eyes. Quinton’s eyes were so dark that they were practically black.
Libby had gotten her hair color from both her biological parents and her eyes from her mother. She focused on the picture until her eyes went all blurry. She blinked several times and held it up to the light to stare at it some more. All three looked happy. So what had happened to make Liza sleep with both boys? Had she and Quinton had an argument? Had things gotten out of hand when she talked to Daniel about it?
There didn’t seem to be any answers to the questions, until another quote she’d read once—maybe in the same book Eleanor Roosevelt’s quotation had been in—came to her mind.
“‘If you stare into the abyss long enough, it will stare back at you,’” she whispered. “Or something like that.”
The phone startled her for the second time that evening. Expecting it to be Amanda, she picked it up without looking at the number. “I opened the box, but I’m not ready to talk about it.”
“What box and why?” Benny asked.
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “I thought you were my friend Amanda calling back.”
“Okay, I’m turning onto the gravel road with a small load,” Benny said. “Will you meet me at the store and help me empty the trailer? It won’t take but an hour at the most.”
Like she had done her whole life, she crammed all her feelings into an imaginary box and tucked them away deep inside her mind. “Sure, but I thought you were out until tomorrow evening.”
“So did I, but I think I’m coming down with a cold, so don’t give me a big welcome kiss,” he teased.
“Only in your dreams.” She couldn’t believe that she could joke after what she had just read. “Shall I bring Fancy to the store and introduce her to Elvis?”
“Might as well,” he answered. “Here’s hoping they don’t try to kill each other.”
“My money is on Fancy if they do.”
“Here’s hoping it doesn’t come to that,” Benny said. “I’m passing the station now. I’ll have the door open when you get there.”
Libby shoved the letter in her hip pocket, along with her phone. She planned to file it away in one of the organized drawers. Tomorrow she would shred it and put the whole thing out of her mind.
“You want to go meet Elvis?” she asked Fancy. “Don’t let him intimidate you. He’s huge compared to you, but he’s just a big teddy bear.” She snapped a leash onto Fancy’s collar, and the dog jumped off the sofa and pranced across the floor.
Stars had begun to show up around an almost-full moon hanging in the sky, and a soft breeze coming from the west blew her hair away from her face. She half expected Victoria to sneak into her thoughts with some caustic remarks, but apparently, the woman she had thought was her grandmother was finally resting in peace.