JackMidsummer - 5 years ago
The letters started arriving only a week or two after camp started.
And by now, I had nearly a drawer full. Toni wrote letter after letter, sometimes to just one of her friends, and occasionally one would cross my desk that was addressed to all three.
A name, or three, written in her neat handwriting across the top, but not one of the envelopes had a return address.
I wasn’t sure why, but when she didn’t turn up that first day, when there was no word from Franklin, and then, worse, when Xavier, Brennon, and Cole showed up at my office later that day demanding to know where she was, I knew something was up.
For a second, one stupid second, I believed Franklin was too occupied tracking down his missing children to think about me.
And I suppose he was, because we’d made it this far and there hadn’t been a single phone call or any ninja-esque men in black darkening my door.
But those letters haunted me. So, instead of delivering them, I kept them.
And now, as I sat down and opened that first one, I was glad I did.
Toni spilled her guts on that paper, warning the boys about her father.
It wasn’t clear from her letter if she knew the reality of the Barrett empire, but her fear of Franklin, her downright terror, came through.
There was a sticky coating of shame in every word.
Once I read the first one, I couldn’t help but read the rest. With each letter, she got increasingly desperate.
Begging them to reply, praying for their forgiveness for lying about Nick, for killing him.
Until the last one. Addressed to all three again, it arrived just yesterday, and the envelope was lighter than the others.
As I sat back at my desk and finally opened it, I read the single line scrawled across the page, “I’m sorry. I know I ruined everything. But I’d do it all again if it means you three can keep flying. I love you. All.”
Antoinette might think she was at fault but based on everything I’d witnessed so far this summer, the number of angry outbursts that had landed Cole in my office, or the way the three boys now sat apart at meals, it seemed like without Toni, those boys were doing a pretty good job of ruining things all on their own.
I was staying out of it now that Franklin was staying out of my business.
But who knew how long that would last. So, before anyone else could find them, I scooped them into a box.
After poking my head out my door to confirm I was alone in the office, I tracked toward a four-drawer filing cabinet in the back corner of the room.
I had to bear hug the fucking thing and nearly put my back out, but I finally got it to shift enough that I could access the hole I’d knocked into the wall behind it the day the whole Main Office building was finished.
I shoved the box of letters inside along with the files I’d put there long ago and shoved the cabinet back into place.
I’d use them if I ever had to, but with that heavy black tower back in place, I prayed they’d stay there and my days of cowering to Franklin Barrett were over.