Finally

Agnes stared at the red box. Perspiration dripped down her forehead onto her nose and her cotton dress stuck to her sides. She’d been cleaning house for Grace’s birthday party, and even opening the windows couldn’t keep the piercing heat out. But the moment had come. Norman’s boxes – including the red one from England – had to be sorted through.

October would be a year since the London bombing, and the red box had arrived from London just a month afterward. She hadn’t wanted to open it, and Victoria refused – too painful, his mother confessed. But now, she had to see what was inside. Her suspicions would surely be answered in that box. Two years of Norman’s private life were buried inside it.

The red box, largest and heaviest, sat on the bottom under the four she’d packed herself. Norman’s clothing for charitable donation. No one she knew wore his size –too muscular for Brian, too short for Patrick, too fit for Uncle Collin. But when she finally lifted the red box, she felt a sharp pain in her lower back and dropped the box back to the floor. She heard glass breaking inside.

She tore at the heavy packing tape, but it wouldn’t yield and she broke two fingernails. Why’d she forget to trim her nails? She’d never let them get long when practicing for the recital – but she’d lost track of the piano since Norman died. She ripped at the tape and, finally, it came undone – and she looked inside the box.

Heaven knows what she’d find. Her heart stopped in the first moments she saw its contents.