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I knew she was thanking me for staying.
***
A few weeks had passed and Bettina never mentioned Cedric to me again.
He hadn’t sent any more texts either.
With each passing day, I was slowly beginning to accept the fact that whatever we had was over and that I needed to forget him. How that was going to happen exactly was still a mystery since Cedric still occupied most of my thoughts, but at least time had made it clearer what I needed to do…I needed to move on.
Spring was in the air in Boston now and the sun was streaming through the basement windows of Bettina’s house. It was a Tuesday afternoon and it surprised me how light it still was outside at 6:00 in the evening. Bettina was usually home at this time, but would not be arriving back from a church bazaar committee meeting until the end of my shift at 7:30. She has given me instructions to heat up some pizza she made this afternoon for Callie and me.
Before dinner, Callie and I were hanging out in the basement where Bettina had set up a sensory area for her daughter to let off steam.
There was a small trampoline, an indoor hammock, and one of those vibrating massage chairs from Brookstone that now made me uneasy, because Bettina had once mentioned that Cedric bought it for his sister. At the time, that warmed my heart. Now, it just made me sad.
As Callie jumped on the trampoline, I held her hands to help her balance. She was laughing hysterically and saying, “Higher…higher!”
After ten minutes, she finally wore herself out, looked at me and said, “I want chair, please.”
“Okay, honey,” I said as I walked over to the Brookstone chair, adjusting the settings as Bettina had showed me how and then she hopped in it. Callie relaxed in the seat, closing her eyes and letting the vibrations shake her.
As she continued to enjoy the chair, I looked around the basement.
Half of the large space was Callie’s sensory area and the other side of the room contained dozens of labeled boxes. I remember Bettina saying something about her kids storing all of their junk in her house and she joked that one day she was going to have a yard sale, hawk it all and use the money to gamble at the Mohegan Sun casino.
Callie seemed to be happily nodding off in the chair, so I walked over to all of the boxes to take a closer look at the writing in marker on the sides.
Some of them were open and I could see what was inside. Others were taped shut and some were actually large clear covered Rubbermaid containers.
One of the boxes was labeled ‘Caleb’s Wedding Stuff’ and that one happened to be open, so I peeked inside. The first thing I noticed was a small white ring bearer’s pillow with two fake gold bands attached to the top. There was also a guest book and a few favors: ceramic swans, wrapped in white tulle with Jordan almonds. A royal blue ribbon was tied around the swan’s neck and on the ribbon it said in gold writing: Caleb and Denise August 13, 2005. There was a mini wedding album with the same caption and curiosity got the best of me, so I opened it. The first picture was a formal portrait of Caleb and Denise. The bride looked beautiful in a satin gown with lace cap sleeves, holding red roses. Her blond hair was down, covered with a rhinestone tiara and puffy veil. Caleb looked a bit more like Cedric back then, since he was a little thinner. Caleb and Cedric had identical eyes and I could really see the resemblance in this picture. The next photo was of Caleb and his father, a candid where it looked like his Dad was giving him advice. His hand was on his son’s shoulder and Caleb was smiling back at him. This made me sad, knowing that their father passed away just a few years later.
When I turned the page, my heart began thumping hard as I came across the picture of Caleb and his groomsman. Standing in the middle right next to his brother was Cedric, smiling ear to ear, his eyes gleaming. He was dressed in a tux with a royal blue vest and a red rose pinned to his chest. Ignoring everyone else in the shot, my eyes focused only on him. I stared long enough for it to seem like his face was going to pop out of the page. He was clearly younger, his hair was gelled back and parted differently, but it was the same beautiful face and smile that had captivated me. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and continued through the rest of the album. Denise was a lucky woman, I thought. She nabbed the normal Callahan brother, not the fucked up one.
I walked back over to Callie who was now fast asleep in the massage chair and brushed a piece of hair off of her eyes. It was rare for Callie to fall asleep during the day, but her mother did say she was up a lot the night before. I decided to let her sleep for ten more minutes until it was time to go upstairs for dinner.
In the meantime, I walked back across the room to the boxes, making sure everything in the Caleb wedding box was arranged as it had been before I looke
d in it.
I noticed another box that said ‘Dad’s Coin Collection’ and another that was labeled ‘Callie’s Childhood Drawings.’ I was going to peek inside that one, but noticed it was taped up.
There were dozens of containers, but I had to give Bettina credit for labeling everything.
Then, I noticed the first box that had Cedric’s name on it and my heart started to pound. That very large box was labeled ‘Cedric Miscellaneous’ and it was not fully closed at the top. It was also not fully open and I might have yanked on the tape a bit.
I considered walking away right then and there, waking Callie and heading upstairs, but morbid curiosity got the best of me. I looked over at Callie to make sure she was still asleep, looked at my watch and opened the flaps of the box. The first thing I pulled out was a Northwestern University banner that was folded. There was also a graduation hat and tassel. Beneath that, were several shot glasses wrapped in bubble wrap. Also in the box: a yearbook, incense, candles, c.d.’s, a couple of notebooks and a huge stack of photos wrapped in an elastic band. If I had to guess, these items looked like they were the contents of his dorm room, like Bettina helped him pack everything up on graduation day and took it all or had it shipped back to her house. I held the photos in my hand, staring at them, suddenly feeling like I was violating Cedric’s privacy. Then, I unwound the elastic band anyway.
Holy shit…this was overwhelming. The first photo was of a very young looking Cedric with two attractive blonde girls flanking him on each side. Cedric was giving bunny ears to one of them unbeknownst to her. He had a silly grin on his face and was likely drunk, from the look in his eyes and the amount of shot glasses in that box. The next picture was of Cedric and some guys playing beer pong. In another photo, some college kid was pissing on the ground of what looked like the dorm hallway…assumably piss-ass drunk. I rolled my eyes. These photos were totally up on some bulletin board in Cedric’s dorm room. Some of them even had tape or sticky stuff on the back. Picture after picture showed more of the same: Cedric with some random girls (in one photo, he was tongue kissing a redhead), college guys goofing around, Cedric giving the middle finger.
I had seen enough, so I rolled the elastic back around the stack and returned them to the box.
There was one last item that caught my eye. It was a small black binder and on it were the letters A.R.T. I immediately remembered Cedric’s tattoo which also had those same letters spelled out on top of the cross on his torso. My heart pounded as I slowly unlocked and opened the binder, a decision that would prove fateful.
Three pictures and a dried up pink rose were inside.
As my eyes caught sight of the first image, a sudden wave of nausea and panic overcame me. The room started to spin and my breathing became erratic. I closed my eyes and knelt down, fearing I was about to pass out. With the picture still firmly in my shaking hand, I knelt down on the floor, knowing that if I stood back up, I would surely faint.
On the ground, I dared myself to look at the picture again and squinted my eyes deeply to be sure I was seeing correctly, to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing.
