The Girl in the Painting

Bill, while a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, is generally a man of few words. It reminds me a lot of his son. Adam was never one to ramble on or carry on long conversations. It was like he never wanted to waste his words and saved them up like coins in a rainy-day jar.

“I’m really glad you stopped by today.” Sally reaches out and places her hand over mine. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too.”

“Just having you here brings back so many memories. So many good memories.”

A wistful smile consumes my face. “For me too.”

Her eyes glaze over with emotion. “It makes me feel like Adam is here, smiling down at us.”

I squeeze her hand. “Because he is.”

A quiet moment spreads throughout the kitchen, and we all let it linger, relishing in the happy and the melancholy and trying to bask in all of the good moments we shared together, we shared with Adam.

It makes me realize how far I’ve come. How much of my grief I’ve actually managed to work through. How much easier it is now to talk about Adam without feeling like my heart is breaking. How, while I miss him, I’m not consumed by it.

I probably still have a million miles to go, but at least I’ve gotten here. To this place.

“Do you want to stay for dinner?” Sally offers, and I shake my head.

“I’d love to, but I should probably be going soon.”

“Okay.” She nods, but I don’t miss the disappointment in her eyes. “But before you go, I want you to take the letter with you this time.”

The letter. She’s been trying to give it to me for the past year and a half, and every time, I say no.

“I don’t know—”

“You need to read it, Indy,” she insists and gets up from the kitchen table and levels me with a stare. “In fact, you need to read them both.”

“Both?” I ask around a knot in my throat. This is the first I’ve heard of a second letter.

“Both. Another came a few months ago, all beat-up and taped back up. Apparently, it’d gotten lodged in the sorting machine or something. Lost in the mail for years, but finally found again.”

My heart picks up speed as Sally leaves the room to get them without giving me a chance to come up with another reason to refuse.

“You do realize you’re not leaving without those letters, right?” Bill asks and lightens the mood a little bit.

“Yeah.” An incredulous laugh spills from my lips. “It appears that way.”

Adam’s mom is insistent, and before I know it, she’s stuffing two envelopes into my purse and giving me no choice.

“Just read them, sweetie. Not to make you sad, but to give your heart some peace and closure.”

Closure. It’s the word I need to hear and the place I need to find.

It might take a bottle of wine to convince myself to go through with it, but I decide right then, come hell or high water, I will give myself this.

I will give myself the chance to accept the things I can’t change, and I will give myself the chance to move on.

The chance at having something special again. With Ansel.

Indy

By the time I leave Bill and Sally’s, it’s getting close to dinnertime. I grab a burger and fries from a fast-food joint, and when I step inside my apartment, only silence fills my ears.

What a fucking day.

I kick off my boots and head into my bedroom to slip on a pair of flannel pajama pants, and I toss my long locks up into a messy bun.

Emotionally, I’m drained. Between yesterday with Ansel and Matt and Lily, and going to see Adam this morning and the long visit with his parents this afternoon, I just need to sit down and watch some mindless TV while I stuff greasy food into my mouth.

Once I grab the bag of takeout from the kitchen counter, I plop my ass down on the couch and shove a few fries into my mouth while I flip through the stations.

But it doesn’t take long before my gaze is glancing toward my purse. Toward the envelopes inside of it.

Those damn things have been taunting me ever since Sally put them there.

She says they’ll give me peace. Closure, even. But I have a hard time understanding how two letters from people I’ve never met before will have that much impact.

Just read the letters, my mind mocks. Don’t be such a coward.

Two minutes pass.

I eat all of my burger and fries.

An entire episode of Friends plays through on the television.

And still, my mind is fixated on those letters.

Just read them.

On a sigh, I get up from the couch and pull them from the front pocket of my purse.

What’s the use of fighting it?

And what’s the worst reading these letters can do anyway?