55 Years Ago, My High School Friends and I Promised to Meet at Our Lake — What I Found There…
Twenty-three letters.
Most were unopened letters my friends had sent me.
But near the bottom were three envelopes I recognized immediately.
My handwriting.
My stamps.
The letters I’d given my father to mail.
He hadn’t only stopped their words from reaching me.
He’d stopped mine from reaching them.
I opened the oldest. Near the bottom, 18-year-old me had written, “Don’t forget about me over there.”
Suddenly, I was 18 again, standing beside our mailbox while he told me those boys had their own lives.
My father hadn’t merely watched me wait. He’d known.
Beneath the letters was an envelope with my name on it, written in my father’s hand.
It wasn’t sealed.
Inside was a letter he’d apparently started years later and never found the courage to give me.
“You were going to leave. First Australia, then wherever the others went.”
“The store needed you.”
“Your mother needed you. I told myself that one day you’d understand why I kept those letters.”
I read it until the words blurred.
My father had been terrified I’d leave.
Instead of telling me, he’d made the decision for me.
He didn’t need to hide letters forever.
Only long enough.
By the time I moved out, the damage was done.
My friends believed I’d rejected them.
I believed they’d forgotten me.
After enough unanswered letters, hurt did what my father had counted on. We stopped trying.
I was furious.
But anger had nowhere to go.
My father had been dead for 26 years.
Tommy was dead, and so was Ray.
There are some things an apology cannot restore because everyone who deserves to hear it is already gone.
But Nick wasn’t.
And I wasn’t going to lose whatever time we had left.
Three weeks later, I stepped off a plane in Portugal.
Luis met me at the airport.
Nick lived with his wife in a small house overlooking the sea.
During the drive, I barely spoke.
“What if he doesn’t recognize me?” I finally asked.
Luis laughed.
“He will.”
Nick was sitting beside a window when I walked into the room.
He was thin.
Much thinner than the boy in my memory.
His hair was white, his hands spotted with age, and an oxygen tube ran beneath his nose.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then his eyes moved over my face.
A small smile appeared. “You took your time.”
I laughed.
It came out as a sob.
Nick’s smile trembled.
Then he held out his hand.
I crossed the room and took it, but that wasn’t enough.
I bent down and hugged him.
Nick’s arms came around me.
And suddenly 55 years disappeared.
Not completely. Nothing could ever give them back.
But for a moment I could smell lake water and summer grass, and I could hear Tommy arguing with Ray while four boys promised one another something none of us understood would become important.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
Nick pulled back.
“For what?”
“For not finding you.”
He shook his head.
“We didn’t find you either.”
“My father took the letters.”
Nick went still as I told him everything.
About the drawer.
The 23 envelopes.
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