Michael lifted the top one out as if it might crumble. On the front, in red crayon, was a heart and the wordsHAPPY BIRTHDAY DADY. Inside, in the same wobbling capitals, it saidTO THE BEST DAD IN THE HOLE WORLD. LOVE MICHAEL.
“I can’t believe he kept all these," Michael croaked.
Linda lifted out the next card. It was hers. A Father's Day card with a sun and a beach and three stick figures, a tall one and two small ones, all of them with enormous smiles. Inside, she had writtenHAPPY FATHER'S DAY DADDY YOU ARE MY FAVORITE PERSON. LOVE LINDA.
They went through the cards one at a time, sitting down together on the floor in front of the desk like two children, passing each one back and forth, reading the misspelled words aloud, laughing at the drawings, falling quiet at the dates. Linda lost track of how long they sat there. The light from the doorway moved across the floor. The hotel went on with its quiet business somewhere far away on the other side of the wall, and the two of them sat in their father's office and held the small, soft paper hearts they had given him a lifetime ago.
Eventually, nearly all the cards had been read. Micaheal reached in and froze. “Linda, look.” He pulled out three brightly wrapped boxes with small greeting cards on them. Before he could read the cards, Linda grabbed them.
“They are our birthday presents,” Linda was barely able to speak from the lump that had lodged in her throat. “Whenever he knew he was going away, he’d buy them, wrap them…”
“Put them in his drawer and have Mom deliver them for us,” Michael finished for her.
Linda nodded. “This deep blue one with the silver bow is Maggie's.” She gave it to him to check without even reading the cards. “The gold one is yours.” She handed it to him as well, then took the silver one. “This was mine.” She watched Michael’s brow rise when he read the small cards and realized she’d dished them out correctly. She gave him a sad smile. “He had his present wrapping color code.”
“That’s right.” Michael laughed as it hit him.
They fell into silence as they sat staring at their gifts.
"Do you remember the day?" Linda asked softly, raising her pain-filled eyes to her brother. She didn't have to say which day. There was only one day she could have meant.
"Every minute of it," Michael answered.
"I was in the garden," Linda said. "I was making something out of shells. You were down on the dock with your fishing rod."
"I remember." Michael nodded.
"And the cars came." Linda's voice dropped as she continued. They had never spoken about it. But suddenly she couldn’t stop the words from escaping. Words that had been bottled up for too long. "Three of them. They were big black ones, all in a line, coming up the drive too slow. I'd never seen cars come up the drive like that. So slow and so quiet. I knew something was wrong before I even knew what it was."
"I saw them from the dock," Michael said. "I dropped the rod, and I ran. I remember running, you came running from the garden, and we met on the front lawn."
"And we ran to the house together," Linda said. "Mom was on the front porch already when we got there." She swiped at her cheeks and cleared her throat. “The look in her eyes.”
"She already knew." Michael's voice was hoarse now, thick with the tears he was holding back. "Mom came out onto the porch before they even got out of the cars. I'll never forget her face either.” His eyes were shadowed by painful memories. “ Linda. She knew before they said a single word. I think she knew before the cars even came into sight."
"And Uncle George came out behind her," Michael said. "As soon as I heard what the men were saying, I rushed up the stairs. Uncle George was there also. He froze. His face went gray. Mom collapsed as her knees buckled, and I caught her."
Linda told Michael for the first time how she’d followed Uncle George, then when she’d realized that James was gone, they meant gone forever, somewhere we’d never see him again. No one would. So she’d turned and run until her little legs gave in, she’d curled into a ball and sobbed.
"His baby brother," Michael said softly. "They had grown this hotel bigger than it ever used to. They were going to grow old together running this hotel side by side."
That broke her. She drew her knees up to her chest, and the dam finally burst. She wept for her father, who had been twenty-six in his dress uniform on the wall and would never be any older. She wept for her mother on the porch with her hand on the rail. She wept for Uncle George, who had closed this office off as ashrine to his younger brother. She wept for the two children on the lawn who had not yet understood that their whole world had just changed.
Michael put his arm around her and pulled her in against his side, where Linda felt him shaking too, and when she looked up, his face was wet, the unshed tears finally fallen. So she turned her face into his chest and wept with her brother.
"I miss him," Linda said into her brother's shoulder. "After all this time. I still miss him."
"So do I," Michael said. "Every single day."
They sat together on the floor of their father's office and held onto each other, two grown people crying like the children they’d been. This time, there was something in the letting go that felt less like falling apart and more like setting down a weight they’d been carrying so long she'd forgotten it was there.
And then, slowly, the crying eased.
It eased the way a hard rain eases, all at once and then gently, leaving the air washed clean. Linda felt the tightness in her chest loosen and loosen and finally let go entirely. For one moment, sitting there with her brother's arm around her and her father's gift in her lap, she felt a warmth move through her, soft and complete, almost as though a pair of arms had wrapped around them both. Holding them close for the length of a single breath.
Then it passed and left a deep, quiet peace behind it.
Linda lifted her head.
