The Brown Paper Box

It was a rainy day outside and I spent hours at my father’s house helping him pack the last of my childhood home. It was finally my weekend off from working in a rehabilitation facility. I was tired but I loved my father and needed to help him move into a smaller senior home. He made the decision of moving realizing it was hard to keep clean and maintain by himself. I tried to help as much as I could but my hours at work increased after my divorce just to afford my house alone. I just finished eating the pizza my father ordered for my ten-year-old son and I, who came along with me because it was my weekend with him. My son ate his food quietly before retreating to his Nintendo switch. He has not taken my divorce well and that made my heart ache. However in the end it was a better choice even for him, I remind myself just like my parent’s did when they divorced seven years ago.

“Janey,” my father calls from his bedroom. I walk down the hall full of boxes, where our family pictures of my younger sister and I are no longer hanging on the walls. My father is organizing his closet it was full of his former military clothing.

“Yes dad?” I ask him.

“You called the movers for tomorrow?” he asks me for the fourth time today, unfortunately with his old age he began to forget more.

“I did,” I respond again. I walk around his room seeing his clothes in suitcases and his books in boxes. I kept picturing how everything was in this room before they were in boxes.

“Is Lauren coming?” my father asks me for the fifth time today, referring to my younger sister.

“Tomorrow she is,” I continue to look around his room before finding an old brown paper package on his bed. On top of the paper it looked like it was a gift with my father’s name from a woman name Beatrice Woods. I never seen it and by the looks of it, it was untouched and never opened.

“Dad, what is this?” I ask picking up the box.

His eyes widen a bit when he sees the box in my hands, he comes over to where I am standing. He grabs it and I see a small tear roll off his cheek. He clears his throat and says, “be careful with it.”

I hand him the package; he takes it into his hands and I see a single tear roll down his cheek.

“Dad,” I am in shock and put my hand on his shoulder to comfort.

He laughs a bit, wiping the tear off his face. “You’re thirty-eight now?”

My father changes the subject frequently to avoid certain things.

“Yes,” I respond. “Why did you cry over this?” I point to the box again.

He sighs and sits on his bed; he then motions me to sit next to him.

“I got this package in 1978, before you were even born. Before I met your mother.” He pauses looking down and running his finger on the side of the package. “I never opened it.”

“Why not?” I ask him.

“It was from my ex-girlfriend Beatrice,” he lets out. “I have loved her since I was five.”

“Did you name me after her?” I ask given my name is Jane Beatrice Carter. My father nods barely looking me in the eye. Why was he so hurt over this package? “What happened to her?”

“She passed away,” he says quietly.

When I finally ask, he looks up at me and grabs my hand. He then tells me his story of his very first love.

“I was a five-year-old when I met her, she and her family moved in from across the street. We became friends first and for most. We would play together everyday after school. If she wasn’t at my house, I was at her house. We learned to ride our bikes together and we would go on adventures together. We would go to the movies and share everything.

It was when I was thirteen, I realized my true feelings for her. This guy named Ricky who was a bit taller than me and on the baseball team with me told me he liked her. I got insanely jealous and a terrible feeling. I realized she was my best friend, and I was in love with her. During that time Bea and I were not spending as much time together. You know it was the transition between the opposite sex is gross to they are amazing.” I laugh a bit remembering my awkward puberty stage. My dad smiles and continues his story.

“Well, we were trying to make friends our sex. Then all the sudden I realize I didn’t want her with this guy who only thought she was cute, and I started noticing how her porcelain skin would glow, her long brown hair would shine, she smelled like lavender and her smile was beyond bright. Thinking about it today I still feel my heartbeat faster.” My father then gets up and goes to a box near where the package was discovered. He hands me a photo album first, followed by some old records from the 70s. There was tons of letters and cards in the box all which were open of course but why not the brown papered package?

I open the photo album first revealing so many pictures of my father as a child with his best friend. She was very pretty, and she looked lively. She had light porcelain skin with long brown hair just as my father described her. My father looked younger but so alive in these pictures compared to now. He always seemed to have had something missing, it must have been her.

“You act like her,” my father mentions as I look through the pictures with a smile on my face. “You are so head strong and stubborn. Always want everything your way.” He wasn’t lying but lately I learned not everything could be my way. “Your divorce is going to be okay Jane. Mine was.” He reassures me everyday since I told him.

Still the thought brings tears to my eyes. I wipe them quickly and change the subject just as my father does. “Tell me more about her.”

He smiles and sits back down, he points to a particular picture of them in his car. “This was when I was sixteen, I got a car and I drove her around listening to our favorite music. By this time, we were girlfriend and boyfriend. Figuring out what we wanted to do. I always wanted to join the army then work in law enforcement. She wanted to be a nurse.” Which shocks me considering I was one.

“She loved helping people and animals. One time when we were sixteen she begged me in the pouring rain to help her load a dog who had been hit into her car and take it to the animal shelter. I agreed only because I knew she cry her eyes out if she couldn’t, mourning a dog for months or even years.

When we graduated, we became engaged right away but it was pushed off because I went to boot camp and she got accepted into our university. So we decided to wait, and we would write through each other a lot.” He then pulls one letter out and hands it to me. I take it and open the letter to see her handwriting. It was marked July 16, 1977, and it read:

My Danny boy,

I miss you so much! I hope you are not having so much fun in Japan without me. I cannot wait for you to come home, and we can get our big house with a big ‘ol porch and a dozen animals. I am kidding I know you only said only four. I think about you every day when our song comes on during work. I hate waitressing at the diner but soon enough I will be a nurse and whenever you are sick, I will always make you feel better. Cannot wait to see you again.

Love Always,

Your Bea

I hand him back the paper and smile. He then tells me what happens.

“August 12, 1978 was the worst day of my life. Her mother called me and told me… my fiancé” he breaks down crying. I put my arm around him and hug my dad. “She was I a car accident. She was on her way to the post office to deliver me this package,” he holds up the package. “She was driving looking for it when she realized she left it at home then a semi hit her.” He cries even more.

“I blamed myself for so many years I couldn’t open this box in 43 years.” He continues to cry hugging me. I break the hug just to get him tissues.

Samuel my ten-year-old son comes running in, “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, Sam go to the living room please,” I say trying to comfort my dad. Samuel listens and goes back to the living room.

“I met your mother two years after that. When my deployment ended, she was a teacher and I met her in the library. I loved your mother but it wasn’t the same.” He admits.

“Without your mother I wouldn’t have you or Lauren, her kids and Samuel. I just couldn’t get over Beatrice I couldn’t make your mother happy. She stayed with me for a very long time trying but I think she is happier now and that’s all that matters.”

“She is, but I want you to be happy as well,” I tell him.

“What if you opened the package it might remind you of her and make you feel better,” I suggest but I was also curious to see what was in it.

“You remind me of her,” he tells me, making me smile. “I love you Janie”

“I love you too dad,” I smile at him. “She would want you to open it and have the things she got you.”

“Probably some old records maybe some snacks I begged her for,” he smiles.

“You won’t know until you open it.” I hand him the package. He grabs it and takes a deep breath as he carefully unfolds the brown paper. It reveals a white box and inside is snacks which he begged for but probably way to old to eat. He laughs when he sees it and then at the bottom of the box is a record. I look around the room for his old record player and plug it in so he could hear it.

“I don’t believe it,” he says. “She found it. It was this one song we loved since we were little and we wanted it to be our wedding song. We could never find the record because it was from the thirties.” He puts the record on and comes a sweet very recognizable song.

“You sang this to me as a lullaby,” the realization hits me and my dad smiles. My heart is full knowing how much my dad loved this woman and then gave me their song.

“Anything else you have been hiding from me?” I laugh with tears in my eyes, causing my dad to laugh as well.

“I was in the army Jane Beatrice there is a lot I have to tell you about,” he smiles at me and I smile back. Glad to have this unique connection with him.