Your Father, Peter

Sam turned the key, and the door to unit 115 slid up effortlessly. He immediately had to shut it behind him as a sheet of freezing rain was blowing sideways, and right into him. He stood in the dark for a second while fumbling to find the flashlight on his phone. At first he was shocked at how empty it was as the little beam of his light illuminated the small space. In the corner was an old desk, surrounded by a few cardboard boxes.

Why would someone rent a storage unit for just a desk and a few boxes? And for such a long time, too. Sam inched closer to the boxes and pulled out his pocket knife. It felt wrong, looking through someone else’s things, but the curiosity overpowered his shame as he opened the first box.

There were old pictures and an Army jacket. Sam picked up one of the pictures showing a young man, probably close to his own age, dressed in uniform, grinning. He turned it over to find the words “Peter’s deployment - 1941” written faintly on the back.

The other two boxes contained more of the same. Old pictures, some more war memorabilia and a few old books and records. Sam wondered how disappointed the winning bidder of the unit would be once they found out what it contained, or rather, didn’t contain. He turned to the desk and started opening the drawers. Just a bunch of old papers and letters, the other drawer was locked.

As he was turning to lift up the door and leave, something glinted in the light of his phone. He reached down and on the ground next to one of the boxes was a key. “Okay?” he thought. Feeling like he was in some weird Hardy Boys mystery or something, he tried the key on the locked desk drawer and, of course, it fit perfectly.

He opened it to find a black leather journal. It felt soft and worn in his hands. There were several pages torn out, but flipping through he found the first page containing writing. It was a love letter, dated January 6, 1944.

Dear Charlotte,

I can’t tell you how excited I am to come home and see our baby girl. I’m sure she has the most beautiful blue eyes and golden hair. Just like her mother. In a few days’ time we will be relocated to France. They say the fighting is bad there and the boys need help. But not to worry dear, you know your clever Pete will be well and home before you know it. I hope this letter gets to you in good spirits. Give my sweet girl Maggie a kiss from her daddy and tell her I will be holding her soon.

Yours,

Peter

“Woah,” Sam thought.” So he did have a kid. I wonder what happened to her and his wife if they are not around to get his things?” Sam sat down on the cold concrete and balanced his phone on his knees so he could keep reading.

My dear Charlotte,

I’m sorry you have not heard from me as I know you hate that and it makes you worry. We have not had any downtime lately and I’m afraid they’re telling us that sending out our letters is more difficult than before. I think about you every day love, you and my sweet Maggie girl. I keep the picture of her that you sent me, tucked safely in my breast pocket at all times. You and she are the force that’s pushing me through these troubled times. I do not wish to worry you, but war is a terrible thing. I fall asleep every night wondering if tomorrow may be my last. Picturing our home and wishing to be with you and Maggie. I wake up to suffering from men in my unit. I am plagued with their screaming. Young boys have died in my arms. Friends have died by my side. And yet, I am spared. I believed this to be because I had not met my daughter yet, but a man who like me, had not yet met his son was shot through the chest right before my eyes. Charlotte, I feel I am wasting away inside. The things I have seen. I am not the same man I was before.

Still Yours,

Peter

Sam sighed. This was rough. “Poor Peter.” He thought. Sam continued flipping through the pages of the Journal. He found more letters to Charlotte describing the horrors of war, some poems and finally in the last page was tucked a faded picture of a baby girl, Maggie no doubt, and a letter addressed to her.

Dear Maggie,

I do not have the words. I am trying to write this while my heart has been shattered. I could not believe it when I returned to find out my dear Charlotte, your mother, was gone. I need you to know, all these years I had been trying to get well. Clear my head of the things I had witnessed. I had been traveling and working, saving to come back and support you and your mother. Although the pain I feel now, now that she is gone, is too much to bear. And so I hope someday you may find it in your heart to forgive me.

I missed out on the final days of your mother’s life, because I was not the kind of man to be able to take care of her, and you. And selfishly I am still not the kind of man that can face you, and see your blue eyes that I know will be the same as your mother’s. I am sorry. I am so sorry. I hope this money that I have been saving over the years is some consolation for the pain my absence has caused. I do love you.

Your Father,

Peter

Just then it occurred to Sam to check the letters in the desk drawer. Sure enough an envelope addressed to a Margaret “Maggie” Thane was there, stamped “Return to Sender”. It was a fat envelope. “The money!” Sam gasped.

Peter DID send the letter, and the money. And she never got it. Sam thought about his student debt, as he eyed the envelope. He felt like he was drowning in it. He had a decision to make. Just then his boss Hank banged loudly on the door.

“Sam! You in there?”

Sam looked down at his phone and noticed the time, he had been in the storage unit for an hour! Quickly he put the envelope and journal in his hoodie pocket and lifted up the door. It was still raining and Hank had a “What the hell, man?” look on his face.

“Sorry Hank.” Sam said nervously. “I got kind of caught up reading some stuff.”

Moments later Sam was sitting in his car doing a quick google search for Margaret Thane. An address popped up that was only an hour away. He clicked on it and it listed a phone number and a former address, the same address that was on the returned letter. Definitely the right Margaret! The envelope full of money was burning a hole in his pocket, and conscience. He decided to do the right thing.

His GPS led him to a large, colonial style house in a nice neighborhood. “Here goes nothing”, Sam thought, as he parked and made his way to the front door. The doorbell chimed and a few minutes went by before an older woman opened the door. Immediately Sam was struck by her blue eyes.

“Can I help you?” She asked, giving Sam a quick up and down scan.

“Umm...yeah, hi. This is really random but my name’s Sam, I work at a storage unit facility and we got a call that one of our renters passed away recently. A Peter Wright? There was no next of kin or living relatives listed, so I went to go inspect the unit before we released it for auction.”

She stared blankly at him.

“Anyways, I found this.” Sam pulled out the black journal and extended it to her.

“I read it, sorry, but I think it belonged to your father, if you are “Maggie”, Peter’s daughter.”

The woman’s eyes fell on the journal and in a second her features changed from shock to anger, to sadness. She reached out and took the journal.

“Yes.” Her voiced cracked. “I AM “Maggie”, well Margaret.”

The strangeness of life struck Sam as he sat there in a big beautiful house drinking tea with a woman he didn’t know, delivering her dead father’s journal, and definitely not thinking this would be something he would be doing when he woke up this morning. They sat in silence until Sam finally mustered up the courage to ask, “So did you ever actually meet your father?”

She gave him a somewhat suspicious look but then seemed to give in to whatever force was holding her back.

“No, I never did.” She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and kept talking while looking down into her tea.

“All I knew about him was that he went to war when my mother was pregnant. She had me sometime right before the war ended, but my father never came home. For awhile they thought he was missing in action or AWOL. My mother died when I was only 3. Her brother and his wife adopted me, so I took my uncle’s last name, Thane, which was my mother’s maiden name. I grew up thinking that my father abandoned us. Or was dead. I didn’t know. I do remember when I was about fourteen, a man came to our house, asking for me. I could hear my uncle arguing with him through the screen door. The man was drunk. Years later I learned it was him. That was the only time I ever saw him.” She glanced up towards the ceiling and Sam thought he saw tears rimming her eyes.

“He wrote you and your mom letters.” Sam said. “I guess he just never sent them.”

And then he remembered the envelope he’d put in his pocket. A little reluctantly he pulled it out and handed it to her. Margaret examined the envelope, her eyebrows raised as she saw the return to sender stamp. Slowly she began opening it and her eyes widened as she looked inside. Then her gaze fell on Sam.

“You didn’t open this?” She asked.

“No, I knew it was yours to open.”

“So you don’t know what’s inside?” Her eyes squinted at him again, a little suspiciously.

“I had a pretty good idea.” Sam said.

For the next half hour Sam and Margaret drank tea and Sam listened as she told him stories about her life. As he left, they shook hands and she thanked him. Driving home he had a feeling of accomplishment, but a sadness lingered in his mind, thinking about poor Peter and the relationship with his daughter he never had. On Monday he went back to work. As he walked in the door Hank appeared from his office with a cigarette dangling from his lips.

“A lady came and picked up the stuff out of unit 115.” He said.

Sam missed seeing the last remnants of Peter’s life loaded up, and for some reason felt a little sad.

“She left something for you on the counter.” Hank pointed to an envelope with Sam’s name written in neat letters. He opened the envelope and pulled out a check with a sticky note attached. It read:

Sam,

The knowledge that my Father loved me is more than the sum of what was in that envelope. I want to give it to you, as a thanks for healing this daughter’s heart.

-Maggie

Sam lifted the note and found that the check was made out to him in the amount of $20,000.