Like Elliot: Part 4

Elliot’s childhood journal is weighing in my rubbery hands like four pounds of concrete.

I open the front cover and there’s a little envelope inside. Flipping it over, I see it is carefully sealed with melted golden wax in the shape of a flower.

Parker whispers, “Marie’s Marigold Mail” and continues, “That’s what she'd say whenever she would hand me a letter to run to the mailbox for her. She always wanted people to be excited to hear from her, that they would look at the card and smile.”

Marigolds–that’s what they were called. The marigold flower transports me back to the barn, to where the purple flowers and orange marigolds were surrounding the outside. When Elliot and I picked them to bring inside the barn, I noticed a peculiar smell. It wasn’t a bad smell, however, it wouldn’t be a favorable scent to carry on you for the rest of the day. Nothing like the floral fragrance of perfumes. Unlike the scent of this room and Parker’s cologne. However, I do remember the elegance of the purple flowers. The sweetness and comfort it would bring as my lungs inhaled. Each time I picked them, I would rub a petal between my fingers and on my wrist. It made me feel like a princess collecting flowers for her castle. The barn was my castle.

But surely, I wasn’t smiling from the letter...though, in any other circumstance, I would be.

As I begin to open the envelope I feel my hands trembling beneath me and the delicate paper is flapping unsteadily.

Overwhelmed, I ask Parker to open it for me but he sorrowfully replies, “She wanted you to read it.”

In a beautiful (yet hard to read) cursive, I read:

Dear Lennie,

Your friend, Elliot, forgot this at your table by the window one day. I picked it up in hopes to return it to him the next week. Unfortunately, we both know he did not return.

You were the closest person to Elliot, and you deserve to decide it’s next life.

I am leaving his journal with Parker in hopes that one day, you will return. I don’t trust it with anyone else. I know how special he was to you and we can’t have it sitting in one of those musky plastic bags with the words "evidence" slapped on the front. It’s too fragile. Too meaningful.

You are probably wondering why I’m doing this now...After I haven’t known you for years and you have moved away and on with your life. Simply, I had always meant for you to have this sooner. As I was labeling items to pass on to my loved ones, I found this sitting at the bottom of a box. It got lost in my clutter. I’m sorry if it could have given you solace sooner. I hope your time with me all those years ago gave you both some of that.

I wish you the world’s happiness and the greatest adventures.

Keep an eye out for Parker too, will ya?

All my love,

Marie

My eyes are brimming with tears.

I wonder what Elliot was thinking the moment he realized he lost it. I wonder if it was the catalyst for any of his trouble that came the following week. Maybe he never even noticed it was gone. However, he was a very cautious boy. Always carefully planned out even when he was being all goofy. Silly but precise. A dichotomy of things you would never expect from someone so young. So young but so complex.

I am shocked he left it behind in the first place.

This makes me start to think that perhaps, it was purposeful.

Did he leave it behind that day for me to pick up?

***

Parker gives me a moment to collect myself and skim through the pages. Soon after, he chimes in asking if I want water or something.

I’m sure I looked as green as the walls and ghoulish. As if my skeleton was exiting my body. That’s how it felt at least. Or maybe I’m just dramatic and Parker is kind.

At that moment I felt like his voice picked up the pieces scattered across the room, all over the floor, and shoved them back together. Not that I was necessarily broken, but if I was, he could’ve fixed it. I was constantly searching for answers but was never broken. If people can even “break.”

And thus, I awoke to reality in an instant. Shaking out my limbs to regain feeling and responding, “Oh, no. No thank you. I’m all good. Why don’t we head out?”

I slip Elliot’s leather green notebook into my canvas bag filled with receipts, wrappers, and more junk. Somewhere that this precious journal has no place of being in. I take in Marie’s old apartment, hoping that it will be the room that finally will give me some answers, and watch the yellow door close behind me.

Parker and I head out on our coffee date and the rest–well, you’ll get to know it soon.