The Gift

The phone started ringing, Petra popped upright in bed. The phone, which had been resting on her chest- exactly where it had fallen to at some early morning hour, flew unceremoniously across the room landing on a pile of laundry as yet undone. Petra, flailed, trying to get to the phone before it stopped ringing. Still half below the silky surface of deep sleep interrupted, she attempted a roll-to-stand, ending in a roll-to-fall including one foot inexplicably tangled in the bedsheets. "Crap!", bellowed Petra as she low-crawled to the pile and her phone, reaching the phone just as it stopped ringing. The missed call announcing itself as MOM on the screen.

"Hey mom, sorry just noticed I missed your call", Petra lied when she called her mother back after making a pot of coffee, now buttering her 7 grain toast.

It was never good news with mom. She would soon learn that today was no disappointment with this longstanding assessment.

"oh, I was calling to tell you your uncle Charlie died", she said sounding bored, she always sounded bored.

This news hit Petra like a ton of bricks, she set her toast and butter knife down, and sat back in her chair, shoulders slumped. "Oh", was all she could muster. The sadness was too much, the silence made it more so. He was her favorite uncle. He taught her how to bat, throw a football, fish, tie important knots, skip rocks, but most importantly he had taught her how to love her mom, who was always challenging. He made it to her track meets, her basketball games. Even though he was a man of meager means he made sure that she had the new shoes she needed, the fees for extracurricular activities, even money to for the Sadie Hawkins dance. He was her best friend.

"Petra?" "yes mom, I'm here", Petra said quietly back. "I, uh, sorry mom" "well, it's how it goes, your sister and brother are going to go through his things, sell the trailer, you know...", she said matter-of-factly, "can you fly out and help"?

It annoyed her thinking of her siblings having anything to do with Charlie's stuff. "Vultures", she thought.

"Yes, mom, I can be out Thursday" "okay then", she said blandly "okay then, um bye, I love you" "Okay, bye".

This was the way any call went.

Her siblings couldn't stand uncle Charlie. Petra enjoyed his attention. He always had kind things to say and he listened to her. He said they were the same, he was a middle child and the others got things he didn't, they were coddled. He understood Petra, he made her his priority. It wasn't until she moved away to go to college that they had ever been apart for more than a week for as long as she could remember. He lived in a trailer park a bicycle ride from her house and she could never even remember if she told anyone when she left to go to his place, she assumed no one missed her. Lisa would always talk down about uncle Charlie, fueled by her mother's homophobic ramblings. Jon was afraid of Charlie because Lisa told him he would turn them all gay. Whatever Jon thought gay was he definitely did not want to be it. That was okay with Petra because she had him all to herself. It was like being an only child, Charlie's only kid. BUT, he treated her the way she saw Lisa treat Jon, with the love and adoration of an older sibling; something Lisa had never shown Petra. No, Petra was bullied and belittled by Lisa and Lisa taught Jon to taunt her in her stead.

Charlie was sandwiched between Petra's mother and her uncle. Petra's mother was a beauty pageant star, their mother and father spent all of their time doting over her. She had all of the pretty dresses she could ever need. Charlie was dragged along to pageants, photo shoots, shopping, all for Angie. He was otherwise a quiet kid who did not ask for much, perhaps because he knew that Angie came first; always. When Lionel was born, Angie was overjoyed. She probably had no memory of when Charlie was an adorable baby as she was a toddler then, but at 6 she was smitten by all that makes babies so compelling. Charlie was constantly reminded that “the baby this” or “the baby that”. His parents were either pandering to Angie or adoring Lionel. Charlie found ways to entertain and soothe himself. He hated the feeling of loneliness, so he chose to be happy without whatever it is his parents were reserving for the other two.

Thursday morning Petra’s plane touched down and by noon she was pulling her rental car in front of Charlie’s trailer. There was a U-Haul backed into the driveway, inside the rental vehicle was Charlie’s old, tattered furniture. He was on disability and always made due with what he had, rarely replacing his furniture, but instead fixing what he could. It was never so evident how poor he actually was as it was now looking at his home dismantled toss without care in the back of a dented and dusty truck. Petra remembered his home for the love she felt there. She remembered the stuffing coming out of the edges of the sofa, she had teased at it making fun shapes and them mashing them back for use later. There was the kitchen chair that leaned oddly to one side that all one had to do was adjust their way of sitting to overcome the issue. This sudden realization of his poverty made her sad, because she knew that he always managed to cobble together enough money to help her when she needed it.

“It’s all crap”, said Jon lugging a box out to the truck, nudging past Petra. “yeah, worthless crap, but we can sell the trailer”, Lisa hollered out at them. “Come help! Put us out of our misery, let’s get this over with” she said directing her words at Petra.

Petra went inside, Lisa directed her to the small room the comprised his office, “saved the crappiest part for you”, she said and sashayed off.

Petra looked around, there on the shelves where they had always been were her track awards, a framed picture of her with her first striped bass, various ribbons, the little origami creatures she had made. There was also dust, more than she could imagine had accrued in the past year. No, it was always here. She went to work on a box of photographs, put aside ones that her mother might want and started a shoebox of ones she wanted to keep. These photos a tightly compressed arc of his life; from the young outdoorsman, to a youthful soldier, to his friendships at the VFW, to pictures of fishing and camping trips she gone on with him. She decided to jettison her track awards as her mother would have no desire to have them, she wondered if her mother even knew what her events were in track, probably not. As she moved to not linger on memories too long, she focused on deciding what could be thrown out and that was a large majority of what was here. At least 40 year of stuff, most of which would mean nothing to anyone.

When the desk was cleared she pushed it toward the door so that it could be tossed with the other useless furniture. As she moved it away from the wall, she discovered a package wedged there. It was brown paper, a grocery bag, that had been repurposed, wrapped around something and taped with packing tape, she turned it over. It was a package that it seems Charlie had not yet finished addressing. It had his return address in the upper left corner and Petra Morgan Green in the center. This must be the package he was talking about in his letters, he said he “had something” for me, but he had misplaced it. She walked the shoebox and the package to her car hefting a full trash bag into the U-Haul on the way.

The day could not have been more painful, she just wanted a shower and to not have to make pleasantries with her siblings and mother. After 3 hours, she and her siblings had cleared the trailer, Jon had already been talking to a man in the trailer park who gave them 1500 dollars ha and Lisa had agreed they’d split between the three of them, because their mother wanted nothing of it. Charlie was a veteran so his funeral expenses (aka cremation) were covered. Charlie’s bank account was meager and his bills were paid. He carried no debt.

At the hotel, Petra took a long shower and flipped on the TV. She suddenly realized that she had not opened the package. She went out to her car in her wet hair and traveling pajamas (an old pair of sweat pants and a comfy t-shirt) and retrieved it.

She tore open the brown paper carefully to find inside a small back notebook, a note, and an envelope.

Dear Petra, I was at the bookstore and I know who much you like to write, so I knew you would like this notebook. I know you have been worried about paying for school and I want you to focus on being your best you so I am sending you some money that I’ve been putting aside for years for just this moment. It cannot repay your friendship over the years. You have been the best little sister and I have loved being a part of your life. I hope this helps. Please keep writing, your letters mean the world to me. Love, Charlie

Petra wiped a tear aside, felt the cover of the notebook and, flipped the pages. She loved notebooks, she loved to write. The cover was smooth, the pages sturdy, and the binding she knew would last. Then she turned her attention to the envelope, undid the clasp and peered inside as she reached into the handfuls of cash, all neatly stacked. It was mostly fifty and one hundred-dollar bills. She sobbed as she counted them all out. Here she sat with 20,000 dollars in cash and all she could think of was how much she really missed her best friend Charlie for his pure love and the difference he had made in her life was his truest gift.