“NO MOVING TRUCKS ALLOWED.”
I laughed until I cried.
We spent ten days driving along the coast.
At first, I checked my security cameras constantly.
Twelve times the first night.
By the final day, I checked once.
That was healing.
Two years later, Tommy asked to meet for lunch.
I chose a public restaurant.
He looked thinner and older when he arrived.
Then he placed something on the table.
My mother’s music box.
I stared at it.
During his divorce, Tommy had discovered it inside a storage unit Sandra had rented for belongings they had intended to sell.
I touched the lid.
“Did you open it?”
“No.”
I wound the key.
The familiar little tune began to play.
I cried.
Tommy cried too.
Then he said, “I’m sorry.”
I asked the question I had learned to ask.
“For what today?”
He understood.
“For making you doubt your own memory.”
