I opened the cardboard flaps.
For a moment, I genuinely didn't understand what I was looking at.
Then I removed the rest of the packing material.
It was a chair.
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An old wooden kitchen chair painted blue.
I genuinely didn't understand what I was looking at.
The paint had worn away along the edges. One leg had been repaired with a darker piece of wood. A black mark scarred the bottom rung as if somebody had once set something hot against it.
I looked at Mom.
She sat down in one of our kitchen chairs.
One leg had been repaired with a darker piece of wood.
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Not the blue one.
"What is this?"
She didn't answer.
I pulled the chair from the box.
It wobbled when I placed it on the floor.
Something had been scratched underneath the seat.
It wobbled when I placed it on the floor.
I tipped it sideways.
One word.
Uneven letters carved deeply into the wood.
GILBERT
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I covered my mouth.
Dad's name.
Not written recently.
Carved there long enough ago that the grooves had darkened with the rest of the wood.
Uneven letters carved deeply into the wood.
"Dad," I whispered, staring at the chair, "what are we supposed to do with this?"
Mom began crying.
She pressed her fingertips against her eyes and sat there while I waited.
Finally, she said, "That was his chair."
"Where?"
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"In Hawaii."
Mom began crying.
"I figured that part out."
She looked at me.
"Your father didn't grow up the way you think he did."
***
Life in Dad's childhood home had become unstable when he was a teenager.
Mom didn't give me every detail.
