nothing to do with any of it, especially that damn coffee table, which I not-so-accidentally dropped off the fire escape.
When it came time to tackle our father's room, we did so with care and respect, knowing we would keep nothing but a few sentimental belongings from his closet.
Jenna, now very pregnant with Zach and Greyson's twins, was in charge of unpacking his dresser, and bagging up his old clothes to be donated. She wrinkled her nose, emptying his underwear drawer into a garbage bag, before gasping.
“You okay?” I asked, flipping through some ancient receipts the old man had held onto for reasons I couldn't imagine.
She held up a small bundle of envelopes bound together by a thin, dirty rubber band. “They're from Ma. And they've never been opened.”
Zach and I both dropped what we were doing to look at the crinkled, old envelopes. The rubber band broke as Jenna tried to slide it away, and as she read who the letters were addressed to, her surprise was washed away with an expression of sorrow.
“What is it?” Zach asked, reaching out for the yellowed envelopes.
She swallowed before whispering, “They're addressed to us.”
My jaw locked around the anger I'd been holding onto for far too long, and from the looks of it, Zach's did, too. I shook my head and told Jen to burn them, before I returned to the tedious task of rifling through Pops's desk. But Jenna protested with a firm “hell no” and came to drop the envelope addressed to me on the desk, right beneath my eyes.
“We're gonna read these,” she declared. “We don't have to share 'em with each other, but we need this. We owe it to ourselves, and to Pops. I mean, he held onto them for a reason.”
We agreed that we'd keep the letters until we were ready, and in near silence, we finished packing everything that Pops had held onto throughout the years. The day left me heavy with an ache in my chest, so great I thought my own heart was about to give out on me. My brain struggled to understand how a life so full and loved could be amounted to just a few boxes and bags full of stuff to be tossed and donated. But then, at the end of the night, as I stood in the kitchen with my siblings, our shoulders sagging with grief and despair in witnessing the end of this chapter of our lives, something dawned on me. That maybe what makes a life full isn’t the stuff we fill it with, but the love and memories we accumulate throughout the years. And here, in the empty apartment, the heat of that love for Pops was insurmountable.
That’s what made it so hard.
“I can’t believe this is it,” Jenna said, staring into the dark living room.
“It’s not like this is the place we grew up in,” Zach reasoned, while fighting his own emotional battle.
“No, I know,” she replied, wrapping her arms around her big belly. “But this was the last place he lived. Like, this was the last place that was his. It just feels so, I dunno, final.”
“Death is final,” I grunted, itching for the cigarettes I was no longer smoking.
“You know, I don't believe that,” Zach said, as his eyes swept over the ceiling. “I mean, I feel like that's what should make sense, 'cause he's not here anymore. Like, I can't see him, so he must be gone. But ... I dunno.” He shrugged, looking back to Jen and me. “I still feel him. And I dunno if that's just some bullshit I'm tellin' myself to feel better or whatever, but I do.”
“So, you think death is more like a new beginning,” Jenna mused, an air of mysticism in her voice.
Zach shook his head. “Nah. I don't see it as an ending or a beginning. More of a, uh ... continuation, I think.”
“Well,” I said, slapping him on the shoulder, “I think you're crazy as fuck, and I think I'm exhausted. So, I'm gonna head out.”
The two of them nodded with the resignation that it was time. Zach and I hoisted what was left of the bags and boxes into our arms, while Jenna pulled her purse further onto her shoulder.
“So, I'll take this stuff back to my place for now,” Zach said, “and when you guys are ready, we'll just, I dunno, divvy it up or whatever.”
I nodded. “Sounds good.”
We had already discussed this but we were hesitating and stalling, grasping for