Morning Glory(27)

“Picked up a new pack this morning,” he says with a grin. He wraps his arms around me in the kitchen, and whispers in my ear. “Look, it’s our anniversary tomorrow, and I know you’ve always wanted to go to Paris. Let me take you there. Let’s see it together.”

I turn around to face him. I can tell this trip means a lot to him. Day after day he cares for Ella while I work. It occurs to me that he needs this trip a lot more than I do. “Yes,” I say, looking into his eyes.

“Good,” he says with a smile. “The car will be here in an hour to pick us up.”

How I wish I could return to that moment, to feel his arms around me just once more, to hear Ella’s giggles in the living room.

I bend over to shut the bottom drawer and hear the ping of my earring hitting the wood floor. Darn. I kneel down to look for it, patting around under the bed, then toward the dresser. I lie on the floor to see if I can get a better look from that angle, which is when I notice the glint of metal beneath the dresser. I reach my hand under the drawer and discover a little brass key wedged beneath the frame. I hold it up to the light. It’s one of those old-fashioned keys—long with a hole at the top. I wonder what it’s doing here, what it could possibly unlock, and then it hits me. The chest in the living room.

Downstairs, I hesitate for a moment before giving in to my curiosity. I slip the key into the old lock and jiggle it a little. It releases immediately, and I feel butterflies in my stomach.

I lift the lid of the chest. Inside, the air is musty and stale, held hostage for years in its three-foot-by-four-foot tomb. I lean in to survey the contents cautiously, then pull out a stack of old photos tied with twine. On top is a photo of a couple on their wedding day. She’s a young bride, wearing one of those 1950s netted veils. He looks older, distinguished—sort of like Cary Grant or Gregory Peck in the old black-and-white movies I used to watch with my grandmother. I set the stack down and turn back to the chest, where I find a notebook, filled with handwritten recipes. The page for Cinnamon Rolls is labeled “Dex’s Favorite.” Dex. I wonder if he’s the man in the photo.

There are two ticket stubs from 1959, one to a Frank Sinatra concert, another to the movie An Affair to Remember. A single shriveled rosebud rests on a white handkerchief. A corsage? When I lift it into my hand, it disintegrates; the petals crinkle into tiny pieces that fall onto the living room carpet. At the bottom of the chest is what looks like a wedding dress. It’s yellowed and moth-eaten, but I imagine it was once stark white and beautiful. As I lift it, I can hear the lace swishing as if to say, “Ahh.” Whoever wore it was very petite. The waist circumference is tiny. A pair of long white gloves falls to the floor. They must have been tucked inside the dress. I refold the finery and set the ensemble back inside.

Whose things are these? And why have they been left here? I thumb through the recipe book. All cookies, cakes, desserts. She must have loved to bake. I tuck the book back inside the chest, along with the photographs after I’ve retied the twine, which is when I notice a book tucked into the corner. It’s an old paperback copy of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. I’ve read a little of Hemingway over the years—A Moveable Feast and some of his later work—but not this one. I flip through the book and notice that one page is dog-eared. I open to it and see a line that has been underscored. “You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”

I look out to the lake, letting the words sink in. Is that what I’m trying to do? Get away from myself? I stare at the line in the book again and wonder if it resonated with the woman who underlined it so many years ago. Did she have her own secret pain? Was she trying to escape it just like me?

I close the lid of the chest, then notice something I’ve missed on the floor. A bracelet—well, a hospital bracelet. It’s made of plastic, and the print on the front is worn and barely legible. I turn on the lamp and hold it closer. “Wentworth, Penny,” it reads.

I tuck it in the pocket of my jeans and vow to learn more about this woman. Could she be the one the grocery store clerk alluded to? The woman who disappeared? “Penny,” I say aloud. Who were you?



Alex is my first thought when I open my eyes the next morning. Yes, we did have a good time together last night, but I’m in no place to take it any further. I came here to heal, not to get mixed up in a relationship I’m not ready for.

I hold fast to my resolution as I walk down the ladder to the living room, which is when I notice his navy fleece vest on the chair. I pick it up and press my nose to it instinctively. The fabric smells woodsy and clean, like a mix of soap and pine trees. I feel a little flutter in my stomach as I set it down.