Happy Birthday

The doorbell rang.

I might have already been awake; sometimes it was hard to tell. My westie, Captain Pickles, had commandeered the covers and couldn’t be bothered by the chime. He gave me a single eye lift, but even that seemed like too much effort.

“I get you, Cap.” I half groaned to myself.

I slid from bed, snatched up a pair of shorts from the floor, and made my way to my caller, tripping over the curling edge of the carpet.

“Gotta fix that.” I said to no one.

The doorbell rang again.

“Coming!”

Amidst at least a week’s worth of unopened mail was a cup of coffee, probably from yesterday.

Good enough.

I took a swig.

Reminder: don’t put milk in your coffee if you don’t plan to drink it right away.

I spit it out, leaving a sour film on my tongue and a few droplets on the back of the chair.

“Gotta clean that.”

“Are you Paige Malloy?” A stranger in a suit asked as the door opened. “Yes?” I wiped the sleep from my eyes.

He handed me a box covered in blue, yellow, red, and green balloon wrappings. “Happy Birthday.”

“Thanks?” I took the package, unsure of everything. “Who are…?”

But he was already gone.

Back in my apartment, I sat next to Captain Pickles, sliding over the bag of chips I had crunched on my way down.

A card.

A trip down memory lane for your birthday… Grab your husband, kid, boyfriend, or even a friend, and enjoy yourself!

Cryptic. Strange.

I shook the box. Maybe a book?

My phone buzzed: a few customary birthday messages, a few dating app notifications. Nothing worth responding to.

“Should I open this?” Cap settled his head in my lap. “Yeah, okay.”

I was right about the book. It was black, small – only a handful of pages - and strangely… familiar. I had seen it somewhere before.

I opened the cover.

Paige,

I knew this handwriting.

It’s your 30th birthday. I’m sorry to say I’ve missed your last ten.

I clutched my necklace; a small key, the last gift I would receive from my father.

I made a list of our favorite birthday traditions. I hope you will indulge me and follow the prompts on each page, as my birthday present to you.

I love you,

Dad

If I had remembered how to cry, I’m sure I would have. I couldn’t do this; I didn’t want to. I had spent so long trying to block the pain of losing him, and now he was asking me to spend an entire day…

But then again, he was asking me to spend an entire day with him. He had made something for me, obviously in his final days. How could I turn that down?

I reread the card. Family… friends…I had alienated myself from everyone who tried to get close to me.

“Captain Pickles, you want to go for a drive?”

As it was Saturday and traffic was light, it only took twenty minutes to find myself back in the center of my old town. Even though so close, I hadn’t been back since.

“Can I get a scoop of cookies n’ cream on a waffle cone? And can you do half chocolate…”

“and half rainbow sprinkles?” The shop owner, Mr. Fisher, finished my order.

I smiled. Wow, that felt good. “You remembered?”

“Of course.” He handed me my cone. “On the house… for your birthday.”

I flipped to the next page. Cap and I watched the boats come in from the dock. Another page. We ran through the park, searching for the tree where Dad had carved my name.

He had left a quarter taped to the page titled “Time to Feed the Ducks”. I wandered up to the food dispenser, but after this many years, I needed another quarter.

“Excuse me,” I cautiously interrupted a woman helping her young daughter learn to walk. “Can you break a dollar?”

“Paige?” She looked hard at me.

“Oh my goodness. Christina. Hi!”

She thought back. “I haven’t seen you since…”

She trailed off, but we both knew her next words.

We caught up briefly, reminiscing of high school football games and lunchroom gossip.

“I’ll call you.” I promised, not wholly believing myself.

“I hope you do.” Christina didn’t believe me either. “Afterall, you owe me a quarter.”

Swing on the swings. Swing so high you can see Old Mr. Deagan’s roof. No Paige, you’re not too old.

Stop by The Tasker Ranch and pet the horses.

Here’s a penny. Make a wish at the fountain.

I spent the next three hours thumbing through the pages of Dad’s book, going on an adventure he had planned for me so long ago.

Just me and Captain Pickles… and Dad.

I pulled up to the outdoor movie theater with just enough time to grab a ticket for the two o’clock. It didn’t matter what movie was playing; Dad and I would go just for the experience. Or more specifically, the popcorn and the previews.

“One ticket please?” I smiled at Mrs. Finkle. I seemed to be smiling a lot today. Not much had changed in this old town.

She handed me a stub. “This one was bought and paid for a while ago, sweetie. Enjoy the movie.”

He really did think of everything.

I only stayed for the previews; that was the point, really.

With a heavy sigh, I flipped to the final sheet.

“Paige, I’m guessing?” A growly older woman answered the door, before I could even introduce myself.

“Yes, how did you—”

“Your father told me you’d be here. It was a…” she stumbled, refusing eye contact, “sort of condition when I bought the house from him.” She motioned for me to follow. “This way.”

I walked through my old house. It was so much the same, but so different. There were no pictures, no warmth, and no love. I felt for this woman.

She stopped to rustle through a closet, and then kept on to the kitchen. “I’m glad you’re finally here. I don’t have grandkids, so this has just been an eye sore for ten years.” She rattled on. “But your father knocked off a few grand if I promised to keep it up until you came by.” She handed me the toolbox from the closet and motioned to the back door. “Well, get on with it.”

“Get on with what?” Dad’s note had only said to come by the old house. It didn’t say what I was supposed to do once I got there.

“Tear that thing down.” She nodded toward the swing set before sauntering to the refrigerator and pulling a stained note from a hardened magnet. “Blah blah, toolbox… take it apart… someone will be here at six to take the lumber and trash.” She gave me a decisive look and turned toward the living room. Nothing more.

I flipped through the book again. We built that swing set together; how could I destroy it?

The toolbox was locked, but there had been a key taped under the final mysterious message. Not surprisingly, it worked. I opened the toolbox, hoping, expecting, to have a revelation. But there were only tools. I rummaged through, not believing that this was going to be the end of my day; but again, only tools.

Captain Pickles curled up beside me on the grass as I fit the screwdriver bit into the drill. I looked over the structure I was about to destroy, feeling the weight of what this would do to me.

“Come here, Cap.”

I scooped him up, almost giddy as I chuckled my way to the pint-sized slide. I knew I was ridiculously too big for this, and that was only confirmed when the plastic buckled under my weight, but it was worth it.

Captain Pickles didn’t agree.

At last, it was time.

Painfully, I unscrewed the first plank, and then the second. About an hour in, I felt a wetness on my cheek. I was crying.

I hadn’t cried in ten years. And once I started, I couldn’t stop. I had so much to cry about, so much that I had kept hidden from even myself.

I cried as I worked, and that was okay.

With just the bottom platform left to break apart, the drill battery died. I searched for another, but there was only the one. Dad had thought of everything; how had he overlooked this?

I piled up the pieces neatly, fuming that I hadn’t finished. I felt incomplete; somehow emptier than when I had started. Out of sheer anger, I grabbed a two-by-four and slammed it down against the platform. It cracked. It felt good.

I didn’t realize I was that strong.

I almost walked away. I almost asked the growly, old woman if she minded the strange square in the middle of her backyard. But as I turned, I caught a glimmer out of the corner of my eye; there was something underneath. Likely a rock, but I felt in my chest that I needed to find out. I skimmed through Dad’s book one more time; maybe I missed something.

And I had. The page I thought was the last, wasn’t. I ran my fingers over the tear. Somewhere he had left me another page, another message, maybe a final goodbye.

I pulled an old screwdriver out of the box and went to work, determined to finish what I had started.

“Is this everything?” I heard a voice behind me and turned to see Cap licking the shoes of the man hunched over my pile of memories. Six o’clock exactly.

“It is. Thank you.” I stood, clutching an unopened lock box. The key taped inside the book didn’t fit; I needed a much smaller one. Dad had to have left me the key somewhere.

But where? I just didn’t know.

Cap and I stumbled in the door: him, excited to snuggle on his bed after his long day of adventuring, and me going straight for the box at the top of my closet, containing bits and pieces from my childhood.

Nestled neatly in the stash was a picture of my dad and me on my sixteenth birthday, holding ice cream cones in one hand and the license plate to my new car in the other.

I looked around my apartment. No pictures.

Huh.

I dusted it off and set it on my desk. Another smile. My hand made its way to my necklace, the way it often did when I thought of my dad.

My necklace. The key. Of course.

The final page from the black book.

My Dearest Daughter,

I knew this day would come, but it breaks my heart that I don’t know the woman you’ve come to be on this day. You are my everything, and I’m so sorry I had to leave you the way I did. I hope this day meant as much to you as creating it meant to me. And now for your present: ten memories for every year that I knew you and loved you. I’m so proud of you, and will always be.

-Dad

I lifted the panel. Stacks of 100 dollar bills covered the box, each one with a date and memory.

200 memories in total.

20,000 dollars’ worth of memories.

Or rather, priceless.

I wanted to read and relive each one right then, but decided instead to spread it out; only read the memories when I spent the money. Make it last.

I grabbed my phone. “Christina, hi… any chance you’re free for a drink tonight?... Yah, I know the place… Nine is perfect.”

7/16/97

Paige loses her first tooth. Guess I’m putting on my fairy wings.

I looked up to the heavens. “Drinks are on you tonight, Dad.”

I scratched Cap’s head before tripping over the curling edge of the carpet. This time though, I sat down.

“Okay, Captain Pickles. How we gonna fix this?”