Matt & Topher

The Memory Box

Halfway through the week after Spring Break — once the cats had appropriately affectionately mauled them for being gone and clearly happy to be back in the apartment — Topher shimmied out from under Matty's arm and slipped off the bed. He snoozed on, curling toward the warmth Topher left behind.

"Wore yourself out, didn't you?" Topher whispered, leaning down and pressing the barest hint of a kiss to Matty's exposed forehead.

Matty had been running himself ragged between the time they'd left Indiana and arrived in Geneva in an effort to find as close to situation normal as he could manage — including a side trip in Ohio to the Greater Cleveland Aquarium. It had made sense at the time, considering they'd spent the night in Cleveland rather than drive all the way through in one go.

The photo of Matty and Colby staring open-mouthed at the Giant Pacific Octopus was priceless, even if Topher had had to take a lot of good-natured shit for not knowing what a literal catfish was.

Now, on Wednesday evening, the cats having had their fill of human snuggles, Topher had taken Matty to bed and done his best to get them both out of their heads for a little bit. Much more relaxed and with only a final read-through left to do for his Capstone project, he was maybe ready for whatever he'd find in the box Grandma Danni had given him.

"This is for you, sweetheart," she'd said, pressing a large shoebox into his hands. "We were looking through our photos for some to give the funeral home for the video memorial, and thought you might like to have some of the things we found of your father's during the process." She reached up and cupped his face tenderly. "You look so much like Edward, and you remind me of him when he was your age."

He drew in a shuddery breath.

"He loved you so much," she continued. "So much, sweetheart. And he'd be so proud of you if he were here. It's not quite the same, but your grandfather and I are very proud of you. So very proud." She stroked her thumb across his cheekbone, and he wasn't surprised she was swiping away moisture. "Now if you need anything — you or Matthew or Colby — you just call us, alright?"

Sniffling, Topher nodded.

"Now, there's all sorts of things in the box, and on some of the photos we've written who's in them and how old they were in case it's a little difficult for you to tell. I apparently couldn't tell Andrew from Philip at a certain age, which amused your grandfather to no end, I'll tell you. But that box is for you, and we don't expect anything back," she added. "I know we talked about it a little bit earlier, but if you do want Eddie's degrees, too, we'll mail those. Just let us know."

"I will," he said, once he'd found his voice. "I'll just...I'll start with these." He set the box on the Lincoln's trunk and let her draw him into a hug.

"You were one of the best things to happen to both Eddie and us, and we love you very much," she whispered in his ear. Topher clung to her just as hard and tried not to cry.

Topher hadn't touched the box since they'd gotten back to Geneva, and it had sat unbothered on the coffee table for days. Even the cats had shown little interest in it, and they were notorious for putting their furry faces where they didn't belong; Fidget had once wormed his way into a partially open dresser door and made a nest among Matty's favorite t-shirts.

Dressed in sweatpants and the henley he'd stripped off Matty about forty minutes prior, Topher sat cross-legged on the couch and pulled the coffee table forward until everything was within easy reach.

Without giving it too much thought, he opened the box and set the lid on the cushion next to him. The first thing on top was what looked like a letter. He unfolded it; a photo dropped into his lap. He'd seen enough of his own baby photos — they were in boxes in the attic at the house in the Adirondacks, and he'd looked through all of them years ago when he'd wondered if there was anything of Eddie's there Natalie hadn't already discarded as being useless to her — to recognize him as an infant, but he hadn't seen any of the first time Eddie had held him. It must have been long after the mess of actually being born, since Eddie was in jeans and a sweater, proudly showing off his newborn to a much-younger-looking Grandpa Tate.

The letter was addressed to him. He had to start over twice and remind himself to breathe.


Barnaby Christopher,

You are, at the this moment, roughly a week old. You refuse to sleep through the night, and just this afternoon you decided that while you will drink your bottle, you will also vomit it back up onto the nearest available person, which happened to be your father.

I love you regardless. I will always love you regardless.

The Stanton family as a whole is built upon tradition, and the first one I'm going to pass along to you is one that was passed on from my father's father to him, and so on and so forth going back generations. The intent of it is this: when you graduate from high school or college, whichever you decide shall be your highest grade of education, I will give you an envelope with this very letter in it, written the same week you were born.

These are my hopes and dreams for you, a father to his son.

I wish you carry with you always the same curiosity that you currently view the world with. You discovered your own hand recently, and were fascinated with how much of it you could fit in your mouth at one time.

I wish you adventure. It will be months before you are able to crawl, but soon enough you will be, and then you will be walking. I wish for you to leave no stone unturned, no path unfollowed, and that you take the time to look and enjoy the scenery around you. There are a number of bright, beautiful places in the world, and I wish for you to explore them all to your heart's content.

I wish you at least one very, very good friend. There is something unquestionably fulfilling about a long-lasting friendship, and I wish for you to know that joy. That, regardless of the storm outside, you have at least one other safe harbor to find refuge in. Your first refuge, of course, will always be here with your mother and I.

Lastly, I wish you a life filled with love, whatever form it may take for you. May you give and receive in equal measure.

While I cannot see the future with any sort of certainty, what I know is this: whatever you do, whatever new thing you try — and fail at, as failing is as natural a part of life as succeeding is — I will be there to dust you off and have you try again. I have no doubt that your future, whatever you choose it to be, is bright beyond measure. I look forward to being so incredibly proud of the man you'll become.

I am, as I have been since we knew you were coming, so incredibly grateful for the chance to be your father. I love you more than anything.

Always,
Dad


It was the same handwriting he'd seen a dozen times on old ledgers in Eddie's desk in the downstairs study, so there was no doubt it was Eddie's handwriting.

"Babe?"

Topher wasn't aware of when he'd started sobbing, but when Matty moved the coffee table enough for him to sit next to him on the couch, a continuous, ugly sound finally reached his ears. It took several more seconds for him to realize said wounded-animal sound was coming from him, and he was utterly powerless to stop it once he did.

"Topher?" Matty hesitated to touch him.

He set the letter aside to protect it from any stray tears, and fairly launched himself at Matty. Matty caught him easily — Topher knew he would, and that knowledge made him cry harder — and held him tightly.

Matty held him through the worst of it, humming something Topher didn't hear so much as feel with his head against Matty's chest.

Finally, after an indeterminable amount of time in which not one but both of the cats came to investigate from the safety of Topher's nearby armchair, Topher found a little pocket of calm. God, he felt hollowed out and raw in a way he didn't think he'd been before.

He sat back and took a deep, shuddery breath.

"You good for a sec? I just want to get a washcloth," Matty said softly, one hand still cradling the back of Topher's head.

He nodded. Matty went to do that, and he ran his fingers through his hair several times.

"Here." Matty had brought him a glass of water, too.

"Thanks," Topher croaked.

"You wanna talk about it?" He drew his legs up and moved the coffee table back to where it had been.

It took him several swallows to get the thickness out of his throat so he could speak again. "My dad wrote me a letter. The same week that I was born."

"And it was in the box?"

Topher nodded.

Matty scooted closer until his thigh was touching Topher's. "You read it?"

"Yep." He leaned back, tipping his head to look at the ceiling. "Bit like an emotional...bomb."

"I bet." Matty dropped his hand to Topher's nearest knee and left it there, warm and steady. His hair was a still a post-sex mess, and he'd thrown his t-shirt on backward in his hurry, but he was there all the same, and Topher's battered heart seemed to settle a little.

Once he was sure his hands were dry, Topher refolded the letter and set it to the side of the shoe box along with the photo that had been in it. Matty didn't ask to read it and Topher didn't offer, and that decision sat well with both of them.

Topher shuffled down a little; Matty folded himself into the available space with his head on Topher's thigh and his long legs folded criss-cross and resting on the arm of the couch. Topher tossed their couch blanket over him; the cats meandered over. Monster stretched out along Matty's torso, kneading his side through his t-shirt. Fidget, after much deliberation, finally settled into a cat-loaf on Topher's opposite side.

"I was only going to sleep for, like, ten minutes," Matty mumbled.

"You say that nearly every time," Topher said, reaching into the box and collecting a small pile of photos. The top one was Eddie and Natalie on their wedding day; underneath was one of Eddie's school photos. His senior portrait, according to Danni's careful cursive on the back.

God, it really was almost like looking in a mirror, except Eddie's eyes were hazel.

"Hell," he said, waving the picture in the direction of Matty's head, "I really do look like him."

"Yeah. Wow." Matty handed the photo back.

It was a good system. Topher could look through the box at his own pace, share what he wanted to, and have Matty's steady, solid presence next to him to lean on, if necessary. Sometimes he spent a few minutes just running his fingers through Matty's hair and breathing — Eddie's childhood photos of him and his siblings had made Topher do that quite frequently. So did pictures from when they'd gone to France as a family and come back with Mira.

"Holy shit she was young when she came over here," Matty said. "You're adorable, by the way."

"Flattery's not going to get you anything you don't already have." Topher looked at Mira's smiling face and his own toddler grin.

"Ain't flattery if it's true."

Topher let his left hand rest on Matty's chest over his beating heart and, not for the first time — or the last, he was certain — thanked God and the universe for putting Matty Winchester in his life.