The Envelopes My Son Finally Read

I unpacked the suitcase that night. Kristin had done a careful job. My nightgowns were folded in thirds, the way you fold them when you have done a lot of laundry.

My good shoes were in a plastic bag so they would not mark anything.

And on top of everything, laid flat, was the brown accordion file from my desk.

Kristin must have seen it there and thought, those are her papers, she’ll want those. She was being thoughtful. I believe that.

But they were not my papers. They were the house’s papers. Inside that file was the new tax statement for the year, due December 31, and the insurance renewal, due December 15.

Neither one was paid yet. I always paid them the first week of December.

Behind those, in the back pocket of the file, were three plain white envelopes. One for each year since Dale died.

In each one I kept the tax receipt from the treasurer’s office and the insurance declaration page and the canceled check.

On the front of each envelope, in my own handwriting, I had written what was inside. The year. The tax amount. The insurance amount. The total. And underneath, every year, because it is how they taught us at the office, “Paid in full.”

I sat on the edge of Marlene’s iron bed with those envelopes in my lap for a long time.

The electric blanket clicked. Out in the living room I could hear her television, and the furnace coming on and going off.

I thought about Kristin’s mother. I have known Gail Pfeiffer for twelve years, since the wedding. She is two years older than me.

Her husband left her in the spring for a woman he met at a car show, and in the divorce their house in Kansas City had to be sold.

I did not blame Gail for needing a room. I did not even blame Kristin, not entirely.

If it had been my mother sitting in a borrowed apartment with nowhere to go at Christmas, I do not know what I would have done.

What I could not get past was the children in the den. And Ben running out in his socks.

And my son looking down at his plate with an empty fork, like a man who has been hit and has not fallen down yet.

I did not sleep much. Around two in the morning I got up and sat at Marlene’s kitchen table and made myself a cup of hot tea in the microwave, which I never do, because I like it from the kettle.

And sometime around three, I decided what I was going to do. It was not much. It was the smallest thing I could think of.

But it was the only thing in that whole house that had ever been mine to give or take back.

On Monday morning I drove down to the drugstore on Main and bought one big manila envelope, the nine-by-twelve kind with the metal clasp.

The girl at the counter asked if I needed stamps, and I said I did.

I went back to Marlene’s and sat at the kitchen table and put the new tax statement and the insurance renewal inside.

Then I put the three old envelopes in behind them, in order, the first year in front.

I did not write a letter. I sat there with a pen for a while, thinking I should.