I am planning to do some traveling of my own soon. Over Winter Break, I will take Cedar on a grand trip around the country that I know his father would be proud of. I will take Cedar to Seattle to see Zach, Riley, and Lyla. We’ll then fly down to San Francisco to visit Aunt Cambria and Uncle Jamie. Phoenix will be our next stop, in order to spend time with River’s father. And finally, we will fly all the way over to Connecticut, and I will get to introduce Cedar to Chloe and Ariel for the first time, the idea of which makes me smile every time I think of it.
Tomorrow morning, I will drive into Rockwood and pick Cedar up from my parents’, and I will take him out to the pancake house for breakfast, if my mom hasn’t already fed him her classic French toast. We will then go home to the farmhouse, where Milo will be happy to see us, and Cedar and I will take turns petting the now six-year-old cat as he meows and swirls around our legs.
But, for now, for this evening, I needed my parents to take and watch Cedar. I needed to be alone for this moment. I needed to be able to take my time.
Finally, I reach the barn. I am inside, and it is just as I remember it being twelve years ago: musky-aired, dusty, vacant. Except I know that it is not completely vacant. There is a small object that has been resting in here for over a decade, waiting for this day.
Starting from one of the walls, I step atop each wooden floorboard and count to twelve. I hear a creak and see the board pop up at the other end. This is the spot.
The little wooden box is coated in grime, but it is beautiful to me, and I use my hands to clean it off. After retrieving the box, I press the floorboard back down, and now, it is time to recover the other object that will be necessary for my task.
I need the key.
◈ ◈ ◈
I have to step carefully around the fallen apples as I get closer and closer to the twisted trunk of the apple tree. When I arrive, I stand there beneath its many limbs, looking up.
The tightness in my lungs increases. The lightheadedness whirls around faster, even more disorienting. My limbs still feel as though they are on the verge of going numb. I take in a deep breath. I let my braided sandals drop to the ground. I set the wooden box down beside the trunk.
He was the one who climbed the tree all those years ago. I had been counting on him being the one to climb it again this time. But now, my bare feet are in the dirt, and my hands are touching the rough bark, and I feel weak, but I am the one who needs to do this.
I jump. My hands grasp the lowest branch. When my feet dig into the trunk, it is like I am the tree, and I am feeling the pain shoot through my body. I try to summon all of the strength in my arms and legs to ascend the tree, but the pain is too much, and suddenly I am back on the ground, dirty, hunched over, and weeping.
My hands are on my face, dirt mixing in with the tears. I feel like I’m going to collapse upon myself, fold over, no longer be able to support my own bones, muscles, organs. The matter I’m made of feels like too much.
But that’s not the truth—I know. The truth is that it’s not too much.
I stand back up and once again confront the apple tree. I repeat my previous maneuvers: jump, grasp, pull, and this time, I push myself to keep going, and I am successful.
My position up in the branches is precarious, but right away, I see what I am looking for. The knothole. It is just as he described, situated at the fork of two branches, and I catch a glint of something golden. It is still here, after all this time, right where he put it. I take the key into one hand and return to the ground.
At last, I can take a seat. Leaning my back against the trunk the way we used to when we were teenagers, I look out across the meadow. I lift my head up to see the leaves above me, and I can feel his presence. I can feel him here.
Over the last few years, I had imagined this day on some occasions. What would it look like, I wondered—what would it feel like—what would be the hardest part? And I had assumed the hardest part would be the climbing. That, I figured, would require the most strength, momentum, courage. But, as I am sitting here in our spot, the dirty box cradled in my arms like an infant, I realize that I was wrong.
The climbing might have been the most physically demanding obstacle, but now I know that the hardest part is yet to come.
I manage to rest my fingers on the lip of the lid. But my fingers are shaking. I force myself to think about Cedar, and the tremors subside, if only a little. The key fits into the hole effortlessly. I give it a twist, and the lid releases.
The sun has lowered in the sky significantly. Its glow is rich across the meadow, angled in a way so that it only skims across the tips of the grass, half the barn’s roof, the edges of the apple tree’s leaves. I angle my head down and look inside the box.
There is the stationery resting at the bottom—the two letters. There are the two pens we had used to craft the letters. We had held those pens in our youthful hands. He had bitten the tip of his pen as he wrote. I can see the bitemarks.
One letter is resting atop the other, so I take that one first, and I set the box on the ground. The paper feels rough between my fingers, and I see the careful, cursive writing of a newly eighteen-year-old girl on the folded, otherwise blank face. It is his name that I see, and this is the letter I wrote to him.
It will be easier to start with this one, but the tremors in my fingers return as I unfold the aged stationery bit by bit. More and more of that youthful, cursive handwriting reveals itself, and I close my eyes and open them again before I start. It is time to go back twelve years ago, to visit the mind of my younger, naïve, teenage self, to relive that day as if it weren’t so long ago.
River,
Today is my birthday. And it was an almost perfect day. Ever since we graduated, I’ve felt like there’s been a ticking time bomb, that the numbers on the clock have been running down faster and faster, and that soon, everything will change.
But today, you swooped into my worried world like a superhero, and you made things good. You made me feel like we were kids again, like we’d gone back in time. You reminded me of all the days we had together, back when I felt like we’d never grow up, back when I never worried about things like time.
Today was perfect. Almost. You took me and Cambria to a hidden waterhole. We swam and we played and we talked. We had dinner with my family, we came to our tree to watch the sun set.
There’s just one thing, though. The thing I’ve been dreading, the thing I’ve been pushing to the back of my mind, but now it’s here, it’s happening. You just told me you’re leaving tomorrow. For New York City. That you’ll be driving the whole way. And now, the truth is, I’m worried again. I’m afraid again. I’m sitting here next to you underneath our tree, and after today, I don’t know when I’ll see you again. I’m trying to be okay with it. I’m feeling the necklace on my skin, the emerald you just gave me, and I’m trying my hardest to understand.
I think I do a little. Understand, that is. I wish things were different, that you could stay. But I know that you wish things were different, too, and that I could go with you.
I’m scared, River. You’ve been a part of my life for nine years. Not just a part of it, though. You’ve been more than that. You’re my best friend. You’re the one who understands me and challenges me and comforts me. I’m afraid to be away from you and to lose you.