Just when a war was there to be won, a god would get in the way. In this case, obliteration:
A letter arrived.
It informed her; he’d died outside.
His body was toppled next to an old park bench. Apparently, his face was half-covered in snow, and his hand was a fist, and sunken across his heart. It was not a patriotic gesture.
The funeral predated the letter.
A quiet affair. He was dead.
* * *
—
Her kitchen was full of sun that afternoon, and when she dropped it, the letter swayed, like a pendulum made of paper. It skimmed beneath the fridge, and she spent many minutes, hands and knees, reaching under, and in, to retrieve it.
Jesus, Penny.
There you were.
There you were with your knees all pinched and stretched, and the table cluttered behind you. There you were with your blurry eyes and crestfallen chest, your face on the floor—a cheek and an ear—your bony backside up in the air.
Thank God you did what you did next.
We loved what you did next.
It was like this that night, when Carey left The Surrounds, and Clay unraveled the paper:
He peeled off the sticky tape gently.
He folded the Herald’s racing section flat, and tucked it under his leg. Only then did he look at the present itself—an old wooden box—and hold it in both hands, chestnut-brown and scuffed. It was the size of an old hardcover book, with rusty hinges and a broken latch.
Around him, The Surrounds was airy, and open.
Barely a breeze.
A weightlessness.
He opened the small wooden door on top, and it creaked like a floorboard, and dropped.
Inside was another gift.
A gift within a gift.
And a letter.
* * *
—
Usually, Clay would read the letter first, but to get to it he lifted the lighter; it was a Zippo, made of pewter, about the size and shape of a matchbox.
Before he even thought to take it, he was holding it in his hand.
Then turning it.
Then steering it toward his palm.