The Package

I found the package covered in a fine layer of fresh snow. I reached down to the first step to retrieve it, juggling my purse and tote bags. My name was scrawled in thick black letters, across the front of the anonymous brown packaging. Just my name. No label, no address, no return address. I carried everything into the house, dropping my bags on the counter. The box, which wasn’t very large, was on the heavy side. The paper was tied in a crude bow with thick twine. I put it on the small kitchen table and forgot about it while I fed the dogs and put away groceries. There wasn’t a lot to do, I was shopping for one these days. I had outlived everyone I had ever loved, an adult orphan. Most days were tolerable, some days I felt a painful yearning for days long gone. My dogs kept me company, and at my age, I felt like that would just have to do.

It was December, and after heating up a can of Campbell's soup, I felt a bit like Ebenizer Scrooge eating my meager meal alone in my robe and slippers. While most folks were preparing for Christmas, decorating their homes and putting up trees, my modest home was dark save for the porch light. I hadn’t bothered to celebrate except for treating my dogs to a couple of thick soup bones on Christmas Eve.

I was washing my bowl and spoon when I caught sight of the box from the corner of my eye. I almost forgot about it during my mundane routine. Wiping my hands on a dish rag I approached the table.

I loosened the knot, and discarded the string. The paper was brittle with age and fell away on it’s own as I handled the package. A box. My curiosity peaked as I gently lifted the lid. Crumpled yellow newspaper lined the inside. I pushed it aside, even as I noticed my fingers trembling. I was both frightened and excited. Tucked safely inside the box was an ornate, snow globe. The base was gilded and had a brass turn key on the back. Gingerly I used both hands to pull it out, holding it up to the light to get a proper look at it. Gazing into the winter scene inside the glass, I felt a bit of deja vu. I sat. Using my sleeve I polished the glass a bit.

A yellow house, a climbing tree, and a tiny station wagon. I turned the key four or five times.

A melody escaped, scratchy at first, but becoming crisp and louder, I knew the tune immediately.

There were no words of course, that’s not how music boxes work. Still as the song played,

I sang along in a hushed voice.

“When you walk through a storm

Hold your head up high

And don't be afraid

Of the dark

At the end of a storm

Is a golden sky

And the sweet silver song

Of a lark…”

I lost my voice as the chorus started. I shook the globe and watched as snow fell down onto the house and the climbing tree and the station wagon. I gasped when the driver's door of the little car opened and a tall man in a winter coat and hat stepped out. I couldn’t look away as a little girl, dressed in a hand-me down jacket toppled out of the back seat, I could hear her giggle. She ran over to the man and grabbed his hand. They skirted through the still falling snow to the house. The little girl made a clumsy snow ball and lopped it at her father.

He laughed and pretended to chase after her.

The song was winding down, and the snow was settling. I was grinning foolishly when I wound that snow globe up again and shook it again and again. Over and over I watched the father and daughter climb from the car to frolic in the snow. Listening and humming along to the haunting tune of “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. Despite my joy, I felt my eyes well up with the beginnings of happy tears. I didn’t bother to swipe them away. I was immersed in a moment, captured years ago, of me and my Dad playing in the New England snow.

I don’t know how long I stayed at the table winding and rewinding the past trapped in the clear glass of an antique curiosity.

I slept in that chair. In the morning, when the sun shone through the windows, I wound my globe one more time. This time the music was garbled, the glass was tinted gray, making it impossible to make out the yellow house, the climbing tree, or the tiny station wagon. Shaking it, the snow barely shifted. This time when the tears came, they were sourced from sadness.

I carefully placed my snow globe back into the box and as I did, a slip of paper fell loose.

“I love you, Always Have, Always Will” was printed in my fathers perfect catholic school handwriting. Something he had said to me not long before he died a few years back.

I will never walk alone, I said out loud to my dogs.