The worn green book in the stranger’s hands was the same one a 7-year-old girl had carried to my son’s funeral 18 years earlier. Beside her stood a little boy with a broken red truck. Then she opened the cover, showed Weston’s handwriting, and asked if I was ready to hear why he’d gone to the river.
The last thing my son Weston said to me was, “Of course, Mom.”
He was nineteen, getting ready to leave for college, and had spent most of that summer packing everything except what he needed.
He was nineteen, getting ready to leave for college.
Cardboard boxes covered his bedroom floor, and lists were taped to his closet door.
One box labeled DESK STUFF held tangled chargers, a broken calculator, and three pens that didn’t work.
“You’re taking garbage to college,” I told him.
He grinned over his cereal. “Sentimental garbage.”
Lists were taped to his closet door.
