Brown Paper Packages Tied Up In String

It didn't look like much at first glance. No one would know that it had the power to destroy a life.

The brown paper package entered the home in the usual way, dropped off outside of the breezeway door by a drone like way too many packages have been delivered over the past year or so. In fact, so many mundane items have arrived via Prime delivery even the welcome mat thieves weren't bothering to steal them anymore. There's just so much jock itch powder, corn cob skewers, and toilet bowl nightlights that the black market can support.

No; the package stayed where it was from 10:37 AM (according to the Ring doorbell) until Becca got home at 6:33 PM and brought it into the house. She tossed it onto the kitchen counter where it slid inside the Tuesday evening Val-Pak along with mailers for Aldi's, Kroger, and the newest Thai restaurant's menu. The one that just opened where the old Thai restaurant used to be.

The hidden package lay dangerously close to the mass of rinsed mayo jars, peeled cans that used to have labels showing that they contained olives, or artichokes, or ancho chiles. Becca couldn't remember what had been inside them. She couldn't remember the last time she cooked. She couldn't remember the last time she'd cared about cooking. Or food. Or the recycling.

Tuesday turned into Wednesday, then Thursday, Friday, Saturday, finally Sunday evening arrived and the mass of paper, biodegradable plastic, rinsed glass jars, and shiny cans could be ignored no longer. Becca grabbed an armful and started into the breezeway and toward the trash cans. Tossing the junk into the green recycling can she slapped the lid on top and started pulling it towards the street.

This is something JP used to do. Hauling the trash to the curb, trimming the weeds that poked up through the concrete, adding salt to the water softener; these were JP's chores and she resented the fact that they were now hers. Temporarily. They were temporarily hers. Because JP would come home again. She was sure of that. Until that day Becca could take care of the unfamiliar chores.

Heading back inside the kitchen she went for the foundation layer of the mess of papers and mail, ready for the next trip to the curb. Pivoting quickly towards the door, eager to get this completed as quickly as possible so she could go back to ignoring the fact that she had done it at all, she felt the whole pile shift and slide through her arms.

With that awkward stumble-shuffling thing that always looked so humorous in the cartoons, she tried to retain control of her burden, but it was hopeless. The whole mass of mess trickled through her arms and flopped across the floor. Great. Just great.

Dropping painfully to her knees she palmed the slips, tracts, handouts, and advertisements into a pile. As she did she noticed that one of the circulars felt oddly weighty as she feathered it across the floor and into the pile. Flipping it open she saw a brown paper package with a knotted string wrapped twice around it. Registering that it looked familiar she recalled picking something up outside the door earlier in the week. So many details to keep track of, so many things to forget these days.

Flipping it over as she reached up over her head for the kitchen scissors she glanced at the writing on the front of the package and felt all the air leave her lungs in one whoosh.

She knew that writing. Of course, she knew it. For the past 32 years she had seen that familiar bold block print on every birthday card. Every shopping list. Every doctor's visit and birthday notation on the calendar. The post-it notes on the front door reminding her to get cat food, to schedule the oil change, to drop off the Amazon returns. Of course she knew that writing. She didn't even need to look at the return address.

But. But she did. She did look.

And the next morning when the green and black truck stopped at her house, when the long metallic arm grabbed the bin and hoisted it into the air and over the gaping maw filled with her neighbor's cleaned and rinsed trash, the first thing that fell into the heap was the brown paper package, still tied up with string. The one with a single word in place of the return address.

SORRY.