Inside the box was a girl’s wonderland. Dolls and ponies and makeup and nail polish, long ago dried up. Little girl’s toys and all the latest fads from the last decade maybe more. It was all brand new. A pink CD player and a couple of unopened CDs of the kind of kids bop little girls dance to. A bead kit for making bracelets. A stuffed rabbit and a pink teddy bear. Little notebooks with rainbows and shiny raindrops. Coloring books. A cash register set with cash and coins. Shoe-tying games. A doctor kit. A tea set. A science kit. Perfume spray. Hair accessories. Everything a girl could want from toddler to teen.
Justine wondered vaguely how much all this stuff had cost and how much it was worth altogether. What was this stuff? Why did he have it? What in the world? She put the box down on the bed.
She started to dig. Not everything was unused. Little things: erasers, small stuffed animals dingy with love, chewed-on pencils with smiley faces and rainbows. Near the bottom was a pile of construction paper art and cards for various occasions. This was some little girl’s stuff. A real little girl. This was…she opened one of the cards…her stuff. JUSTINE it said in little girl’s handwriting, big capital letters with a heart dotting the I. She thought she remembered it, though who could tell. Still. She had no doubt this was a box of stuff saved from and then bought for her.
Justine sat down very slowly on the edge of the bed, the stack of papers in hand.
Everything became still. She could hear the dishwasher sloshing in the other room. Her heartbeat was in her ears. She felt sweat popping out on her forehead. She flipped to the front of the card. Sure enough. Father’s Day. From one of the good years then. She felt suddenly angry. How dare he? Her mind went through a list of a million things he had missed. All the things. She didn’t even remember him, he’d been gone that long, and all this time he’d been, what, hoarding stuff for her? Waiting for her? What?
She shuffled through more papers. Many were blank birthday cards but a few had writing in them. “Wish I could be there” “Love you bunches” “Growing up so fast!” As far as she knew, as far as her mother had told her, he’d left and never looked back. She found herself wondering if he had a different story. It looked as though he did. He’d lived here, how long? Ages she thought, and never made contact?
Why hadn’t she known her father was less than 20 minutes away her entire life? Thinking about her. Wanting to see her. She felt the tears welling up again.
Was it her fault? Had she believed blindly and missed an opportunity to know him? Was he a jerk who walked out on his family? Someone who loved and missed his daughter? Something else entirely. She didn’t know. Couldn’t know.
Justine heaved a heavy sigh. She tossed the papers back into the box. She still had the bathroom to clean and she felt wiped of energy. Maybe if she took a nap. She didn’t like the idea of staying here that long, but she shrugged it off. It would be ok, she thought, just 20 minutes. Technically this was her place until the end of the month, and she would have to drive home in the dark no matter what. She set the timer on her phone, grabbed her coat from the other room, and spread it on the bare mattress. She crawled onto the bed and lay down on her coat. After a moment, she sat up, pulled the stuffed rabbit from the box, and cuddled it.
Within minutes, she was asleep.
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