Christopher’s mother shook off the past and brewed herself a pot of coffee to get through the morning. Jerry had left the living room in shambles. Again. She told him a million times that she wasn’t put on this earth to pick up after him like his God damn mother as she spent the best years of her life picking up after him like his God damn mother. But that’s what marriage is. Clothes are only new once. So are vows. So are kisses. Didn’t her mother always say that?
Christopher’s mother busied herself with the living room first. Then, the dining room table that his pension check kept filling with empty beer bottles and overflowing ashtrays. She made herself eggs. She watched her stories. For some reason, she could never remember what happened in yesterday’s episode. But it was still better than silence. She finished her eggs, and during the commercial break, she put the paper plate in the trash can.
The one right next to the drawer.
She promised herself that she wouldn’t do it this time. Don’t open it. It’s only going to make you cry. But she couldn’t help herself. It was the closest thing she had to him anymore. She opened the kitchen drawer and looked at the stack of letters. The first one she wrote angry. The second desperate. The third insulted.
Every emotion from A to Z with one message in common.
“Please, let us back into your life, Christopher.”
Every unopened envelope—from faded yellow to fresh white—with the same indifferent stamp.
RETURN TO SENDER.
Christopher’s mother closed the drawer with a snap. She wouldn’t let herself cry. Not today. She had too much to do. Like sitting in the warm kitchen and looking out into the cold. And remembering her son as a little boy who worshipped her. Not the grown man who looked at her with the same disdain with which she looked at her own mother.
All of these lifetimes stuck in her mind like the end of a record turning over and over in the wax. Going nowhere. Hadn’t she been here before? Hadn’t she sat in this warm kitchen all alone staring out the window, waiting for him to come home out of the cold? Even settling for the mailman to just come with a message? Hoping. Praying. Just one time to bring her an envelope not marked RETURN TO SENDER. One letter from her grown son’s own hand. Mom, I’m sorry. Mom, I know it was hard for you. Mom, you gave up your life for me, and I don’t hate you anymore for that. I understand you. And you are still a little boy’s hero.
Christopher’s mother put her head in her hands and wept. Her voice echoed off the kitchen walls, and for a moment, she thought of her tears like trees falling down in the middle of a forest with no one there to hear them.
Knock. Knock.
Christopher’s mother looked up. Her heart leapt. She ran to the door. She had installed a mail slot in the front door because she couldn’t bear to walk to the mailbox anymore. Or did Jerry just not let her leave the house without him? She couldn’t remember.
“Hello?” she called out.
But the mailman said nothing. He never did. He simply slipped the mail through the slot like a schoolkid passing notes and walked away. She had never even seen his face.
Christopher’s mother dropped to her knees and grabbed the stack of mail scattered on the floor. She waded through coupon books and catalogs until she found what she was looking for. Her hopes and dreams took their familiar place in her throat. She turned over the letter, and she saw it.
RETURN TO SENDER.
The envelope was blurry through her tears. Like cataracts in an old man’s eyes. Why did she always think of an old man when this happened? She picked herself up with whatever dignity she had left. She went to the kitchen and opened the drawer. She was just about to throw another log on the fire of her lifetime of disappointment and go upstairs for her afternoon nap, hoping that this time she wouldn’t have that terrible nightmare of Christopher’s father stabbing him with the knife again.
When she stopped.
She looked outside again. The cold backyard. The swing set moving in the breeze. Reminding her of Christopher. Reminding her of something important. His hand on her chest. When did that happen? She looked at the light behind the swing set. The sun had risen. It reminded