She watched him drink. “Another?” She looked ready to pour one for herself.
“I’m fine.” He resumed pacing as she returned to the couch.
She slid the box near. “I’m afraid to ask what’s inside.” She inhaled a tremulous breath. “When you told Lark to come back later, what happened?”
“She opened her book bag and put the box on my desk. She looked ready to cry.” He grimaced. “I’ll give her credit. She got the whole speech out. How it was the happiest day of her life when she found the box in her mother’s attic. How much she’d wanted the missing pieces of her life. How grateful she was to finally have them.” Heartache threatened to steal Griffin’s composure, but he plowed on. “She was burying the lede—not that it mattered by then. I knew what she was trying to ask. Because I knew what she’d found inside the box.”
A potent silence fell between them. Sorrow inked Sally’s gaze. Then doubt thinned her lips. Griffin caught the reaction a split second before she washed her face clean of emotion.
A silent accusation, but he brushed it aside. What right did he have to take offense? This wasn’t about him or his feelings. It was about Rae and her daughter. About finding an honorable resolution.
The weight of what would come next made Griffin weary. The past he’d worked hard to expunge from memory, exposed.
“Go on,” he urged, “see what’s inside.”
“Griffin, if you’d rather I—”
“Go on, Sally. Look.”
The invitation crowded her face with doubt. Then the lid creaked open.
The contents charted a boy’s affections. One by one, his sister placed the items on the coffee table. A bracelet woven from long grass. A bird’s nest, old and crisp as kindling. A glass vial with pebbles inside. A clumsy drawing of a girl with flame-colored hair, and the graying skin of a baseball. Just the skin: the baseball’s core was missing.
Her nose wrinkling, Sally held up the soiled cowhide.
“Connor gave it to us as a joke,” he explained. “When we were kids, Rae and I pitched a lot of rounds. One summer, we wore the ball out.”
“I remember.”
“You do?”
His sister’s eyes misted. “You wanted to play pro ball. Rae decided if you were heading to the major leagues, she’d go too.”
They’d been eight or nine. Too young to grasp life’s limitations. “We figured we’d play on the same team.”
“No one had the heart to tell you otherwise.” She sighed. “You and Rae were inseparable. I was a little jealous.”
“That was stupid. Why didn’t you hang around with us? We wouldn’t have minded.”
His sister regarded him as if he’d grown a tail. “Who’s being stupid? You wanted Rae all to yourself. The chemistry was there from the beginning—even before either of you were old enough to understand. You brought out the best in each other. Tempered each other too.”
“Rae became a little less impulsive, and I came out of my shell.”
“I guess, on a different level, I wasn’t jealous. More like . . . relieved. After all the bullying from other boys at school, you’d found a friend who liked you for exactly who you were.”
Her expression shifting, Sally returned her attention to the box. She withdrew a series of photos. All were close-ups from high school, a visual representation of the dangers of love.
Pausing, she frowned. “What else is in here?”
When he remained silent, she removed the love letter he’d feverishly penned right after Rae broke up with him and said to stay out of her life—permanently. He’d never received a response.
The letter rustled open.
Sally averted her gaze. “Should I stop? This must be excruciating for you.”
Griffin poured himself another shot. Excruciating? Not even close. The alcohol wasn’t strong enough to dull the pain.
“Go on. Lark’s already been through the contents. You need to see what she found.”
More love letters drifted onto the coffee table. Sally handled them with the care one took with sacred objects. Next, the silver locket he’d given Rae on her seventeenth birthday. Then a Valentine card, crumpled and worn.
All of it, the map of a young man’s heart.
Looking away, he got back on track. “After Lark put the keepsake on my desk, my assistant came in. The client waiting in the conference room was furious about the delay—I only left for a minute. When I returned, Lark was gone.”