The Town (Book 1, Lonstino & Greenwood Series)

Chapter 19 - Letters

GREG

Just as I'm returning home from the hardware store, I see Brian and Ximena walking down the street laughing. I can only guess they had a talk and are back on good terms. Ximena's intentions are getting clearer with each day that passes, her stay in this town is only temporary and besides developing friendships, she's got no intention of dating anyone. Only seeing her with Brian makes me doubt if that is completely true. We haven't spoken much in the past days and all she does is work on her book.

Today is the day I'll work on the second room of this floor, something I've been procrastinating since my wife passed away. It used to be my parent's office and after we got the house, it became a storage. Now that I'm renting the top floor I need somewhere to work more comfortably. The living room isn't spacious enough for all the stacks of exams I have and the upcoming midterms will make the lack of space even worse.

On my way home, I picked a fast food meal and felt slightly guilty. Sophia would have disapproved of my choices, due to all the years I battled with my weight. I don't know why I did it, likely because I'm determined to clear that room and not waste time preparing a meal. I scarfed down the fries in the car while they were still, but barely touched the chicken fingers. I washed everything down with a soft drink and my stomach churned since I haven't drunk it in a long time. It also didn't taste as good as it used to.

Armed with boxes and trash bags, I take a deep breath and open the door of the room. The mess is so large I don't think I'll finish in one day. Sophia's things are also in here and I think it's time to let go of them as much as it hurts. In two months, it will be the third anniversary of our accident. Her favorite purse is atop a dusty box, the one she had on that horrible night. It is old and the leather has cracked in a few places, but she didn't care. I pick it up and the strap snaps, making the contents fall on the floor. Her wallet, makeup, papers and pieces of glass from the window glass scatter around.

Every one has been trying to convince me since then that it was an accident, but it's my fault that my wife is dead. I probably should be behind bars, but there was no one to blame me on what happened. Every day I regret my actions and wish I could have done things differently. I was at a point when I was struggling with my eating habits. I had lost quite some weight, but was nowhere near the goal. On that day, I had been to a workshop in between faculty meetings and didn't have time for a nutritional meal or even to eat calmly, so I ate a burger and some chicken nuggets on my way to pick Sophia from work. She was annoyed and disappointed as the smell of the food was present in my car, even when I did my best to dispose of the containers. I was still hungry when we reached the movie theater and got popcorn. Sophia started nagging at me and kept doing it the rest of the evening, saying how I'd work so hard to get healthy and was throwing it out of the window with my choices.

It all turned into a full argument in the car. I felt embarrassed that she kept bringing up the fact that I was still overweight. It was too close to the way Hannah has treated me all my life, so I yelled at her: YOU SHOULD LOVE ME THE WAY I AM AND NOT FOR HOW I LOOK!

I didn't see the car coming from the crossing and didn't realize that the stoplight was red for me. In a second, I saw lights next to the passenger door and I tried to avoid being hit. The road was wet and I lost control, going over the low concrete section that divided the lanes. We tumbled inside the car like puppets until it came to a stop. My head kept spinning, making my eyesight blurry and the pain I experienced was unbearable. I couldn't move and the red stain on my shirt kept growing. I called Sophia, but my voice came out weak and my mouth tasted like blood.

Shadows moved around the car and I wasn't sure if they were real people or my imagination as I started losing consciousness. On one of the few clear moments I had I saw Jaden who was calling my name. I couldn't even respond because everything faded then. I woke up 17 days later in the intensive care unit with a cast on my left arm, and everything else from my chest to my hips bandaged tightly. My jaw was stitched and I had other places where I got cuts from the broken glass of my window and the windshield.

Lewis was in the room when I woke up and said that my parents had just left to go home and rest. I asked him if Sophia was okay and his terrified look told me everything I needed to know. The pain in my heart was worse than my broken bones.

"She put up a good fight, but didn't make it," he said but it wasn't enough to calm me.

My recovery was even harder due to the fact that I couldn't say goodbye. Sophia suffered a serious brain injury among others and her funeral happened while I was in a coma. My situation was far from getting better, in the months after, I went through additional surgeries and the doctors couldn't save my leg. I lost weight past the point of being healthy. The nurses at the recovery center had to beg me to eat and the doctors threatened to give me a feeding hose if I didn't try. Everything reminded me of her and I couldn't stop crying so eating was the least of my worries. I was a bag of bones by then and it took the help of a psychiatrist to bring me back to life.

My food returns and I quickly grab a trash bag. My body shakes until all I have left are dry heaves as I lie down on the cold floor. My tears flow freely. I will never forgive myself for being so careless and losing my beautiful wife.

After a while, I regain strength and my tears stop. I need to go on and can only honor her memory at this point since I can't change the past. I grab another bag and throw the first one in after tying it close. That's followed by the pieces of glass and the makeup. Inside her wallet I find her bank and credit cards, so I will need a pair of scissors to cut them and I didn't even think about bringing one. I return to the kitchen and can't seem to find the scissors, so I decide to take care of the wallet later. The rest of the bags around the room contain mostly clothes and are ready to donate to goodwill. I open a box and start packing shoes and anything else I will give away. When I have a decent pile, I bring the first boxes to my car to make more room. Ximena's apartment is still dark, so she must still be out with Brian.

I repeat the same process with two other boxes I filled with nutrition books and cookbooks that maybe the university library or a few students might be interested in as those are in really good shape. The last box contains mostly romance novels, many written by Ava Gardner. Sophia would have loved meeting Ximena and I think she would have been so surprised to find that she isn't a middle-aged lady typing page after page in an old-fashioned typewriter. If Sophia was alive, she would have been delighted to find out they are the same age and that Ximena types away on a laptop surrounded by notebooks, empty cups of coffee and wrappers of candy. I'm sure they would have become the best of friends too.

The six boxes have made a difference already and I think I can call it a day for the moment since I can't fit more boxes or bags in my car. I grab the stack of papers that fell on the floor and the wallet and bring them to the living room to sort them out. Next to me on the couch, I place a dry cleaning receipt, the confirmation of the extension of our postal box contract and a quote of a nutrition tracking software she was interested in. The folded papers seem to be letters and I grab my reading glasses to take a better look at them. My chest becomes tighter the more I read and my eyes eventually blur from the tears that form. I feel hot and cold, confused and heartbroken that Sophia kept this secret from me. Sobs escape me as I read the words over and over again. I suddenly feel warm arms around me.

"Greg, what is going on? What happened?" Ximena whispers while rubbing my back.

I lean back on the couch, take my glasses off to clean the tears and give her the papers with a shaky hand. She reads them and places a hand over her mouth then looks at me with surprise. On the day of the accident, Sophia got a letter from an adoption agency replying to one she sent. She has a son.