Found Love Again.

The Treasured Box

I let it ring twice more. Then my thumb finally moved, and I answered.

"Hello?"

"Is this Celine Jones?" The voice was older, warm, a little shaky. "You don't know me, dear. But I worked beside your father for twenty years."

The air left my lungs.

My father. Someone had just said it out loud, like he was still part of the world.

"Yes," I managed, my voice trembling. "How can I help you?"

"We've found a box with your name on it, and a letter," the woman said gently. "I believe your father left it for you. We just want to know where to send it."

My throat closed. I was seconds from breaking down at my desk, so I pressed my palm hard against my mouth, breathed in, and pulled myself together long enough to recite my address.

"It will reach you today, dear," she said softly. "Take care of yourself."

The line clicked.

I set the phone down and leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling, trying not to cry.

I had just told a man to face his grief, and I had almost forgotten I had mine to face.

My chest grew heavy again, a weight I knew far too well. This time I didn't have the strength to fight the tears, so I stopped trying. I covered my face and cried behind my closed door, quietly, for a long time, because for once I didn't want to act strong. I didn't want to force myself to be.

The rest of the day passed on autopilot. I read files without seeing them. When the intercom stayed silent, I was, for once, grateful to Sir Damian for ignoring me.

Work finally ended, and I took a cab straight home, my forehead resting against the cool window while the city lights blurred past.

The box was waiting at my door.

A scuffed wooden box, its corners softened from years of being handled, a courier slip stuck to the lid. I didn't need to read my name on it. I knew it immediately.

His treasured box.

I took a deep breath, tears already gathering, and picked it up. Inside, I didn't even take off my shoes. I just set the box on the table and stared at it.

Memories came rushing in all at once: his chuckle, the way his eyes closed whenever he smiled or laughed, the way he carried me on his back like I weighed nothing. The way he had always, always put me first.

My hands shook as I lifted the lid.

His album.

The same album where he kept my pictures, from the day I was an infant to the last time we spoke in the hospital.

I opened the first page. It was him, holding baby me, looking at the camera as if he'd just won the world. Beneath the picture, in his neat handwriting:

June 8th. The day my priceless jewel came into the world.

My dad was a meticulous man. He wrote everything down, every detail and every bit of his emotions.

I turned to the next page. It was the day I got my ears pierced, and in the picture, he was the one in tears. I laughed through my own. Then the next page, my first birthday: a lopsided cake and his careful handwriting, proof that he had always tried his best to give me a good life.

I sat there flipping through every page, every season of my childhood, until I reached the last one. The last picture we took together. He had pasted it into the album himself in the hospital while I sat beside his bed and watched him do it.

I broke down completely.

When I could breathe again, I looked into the box and saw a small, faded shape.

"Squeeshy."

My turtle, the only toy I'd had when I was little. I pressed it against my chest, soft and worn and still smelling faintly like home.

Beneath it lay an envelope.

I opened it with trembling fingers.

Celine, my princess,

By the time you read this, I'll probably be gone. I love you. I have always loved you, and I will love you forever.

I found out I had stomach cancer long before you got into college. I thought I had time. I thought I would survive, and I didn't want you distracted. I knew that if you found out, you would have worried yourself sick, and gone out of your way to raise money to save me, and that would have pulled your focus from school. I couldn't let that happen.

I tried to work things out on my own, but my time is up, and I have to accept that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm leaving you alone in this world, but know that I am watching over you from above.

I want you to live a happy life. Forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead.

I love you, my angel.

I couldn't hold the tears back any longer.

He had known. All those months, he had known, and he had smiled at me over the phone and asked about my classes. He had carried it alone so I wouldn't have to.

He promised he would watch me graduate. He promised he would walk me down the aisle at my wedding.

I had thought a new job would be a distraction. I had thought if I kept busy enough, the grief would stay quiet. But it hadn't gone anywhere. I had only locked it in a drawer, just like Damian had with his frame, and it had been waiting in a box all along.

If I wanted to help heal anyone else, I needed to heal first.

I curled up on the couch with the album against my chest and Squeeshy in my hand, crying my eyes out.

And for the first time since the funeral, I let myself.

I whispered into the empty room, "Okay, Dad. I'll heal."

I didn't know that someone was about to test that promise within hours.