Sparks Reignited (The Extended Hobson Family Trilogy: book 2)

Cleaning Day

"Meli where do you want these boxes?" Ben asks me, coming down to the first floor with four largish boxes stacked atop each other.

Today Andy and I are cleaning out the attic. Actually, it's Danny, Ben, and Andy doing the heavy lifting. I'm downstairs with Gabe and Gwenn, going through the boxes of things we have stored in our overly crowded attic. There's six years worth of stuff up there and Andy is a major packrat. Seven years ago, I would be up there helping them move boxes down here, but seven years ago I wasn't paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. I've been trying to get Andy to clean out the attic for years, but he wouldn't do it until Danny offered to help him one day.

"Ben, you shouldn't be carrying all of those down at once, you're bound to drop one of them." I say and meet him at the base of the ramp. Danny comes down behind Ben and takes the top two boxes from him.

"Why don't you take a break Squirt, you look tired." Danny says and sets the boxes down.

"I'm not tired. I want to help more." Ben argues.

"Ben, you can help me sort through these boxes for a bit, just until you're all rested up again." I say.

"But I want to help Danny and Uncle Andy carry the boxes down."

"It'll be fun, trust me. Plus we have peanut butter cookies, your favorite."

"Okay Meli. I think we should start on this box." Ben picks up one of the boxes he just set down.

"Alright let's get started then."

Ben and I go into the living room and set the box down on the coffee table. Gwenn and Gabe come over and join us. I open the box and inside is a journal, letter, locket, and jacket. The jacket and locket were given to me by a guy I used to be in love with, Dylan Grant. The journal contains pages full of how I felt about Dylan and how he refused to admit he felt the same way. The letter, I wrote it almost four years ago. It was supposed to go to Dylan, but was never sent. I used to write Dylan letters daily and after two years of not hearing a word back from him, I just stopped writing. The last few letters I sent were pretty harsh, and I bet this one is the worst.

"Why would Uncle Andy keep all of this stuff? It must have been really special." Ben says.

"It is special, but this isn't Andy's stuff, it's mine." I say.

"Why is it special? It looks like junk to me."

"Do you remember Dylan Grant, Toby and Eliza's son?" Ben nods, while Gwenn and Gabe shake their heads no.

"I didn't expect for the two of you to remember him. This "junk" just happens to be for him. I wanted to give it to him the day he left for the Army, well except for the letter because that was supposed to be sent to him later, but he left without even telling me goodbye."

"I thought you two were best friends or something, why didn't he come say goodbye?"

"I don't know. I asked myself that for two years, but could never come up with a good answer. Neither could Dylan I guess."

"What do you mean?"

"I would write letters to him everyday, just like this one." I pick up the letter from inside the box. "I would ask him why he never told me goodbye that day. He never even sent me one letter back."

"Do you still looove him?" Ben drags out the 'o'.

"I don't know. How can somebody love a person that doesn't love them back?"

"God does it all the time."

"You are way too smart for a 10 year old." Ben grins widely at this comment. Sometimes it's hard to remember he is only 10, he seems much older than that. "It doesn't matter now I guess, since he's never coming back here."