Yours, Nick

Watching as the unmarked drone flew away, anticipation made Spencer’s fingers tingle. He loved getting mail so much that he was one of the only people he knew who still regularly sent or received letters. Several of his friends happily engaged with him in this hobby, one even going so far as to get them matching fountain pens and traditional letter paper as a Christmas present the previous year.

The drone itself was wholly unremarkable, six large rotors supporting a bulky, grey, rectangular body and package clamp. No logo or other design adorned it, meaning that it was from a small, private delivery enterprise. The big companies would never have sent something into the field that didn’t proclaim their name for all to see.

Feeling giddy as a child looking at a mountain of birthday presents, Spencer opened the door to behold a brown box with his name and address written in large, neat, block letters across the top with no clues as to the sender. He stooped and hefted the box. The thing was surprisingly heavy, not difficult to lift, but the weight of it took him by surprise.

Setting the box on his kitchen table, Spencer eschewed scissors or knives in his excitement, tearing into the box the old fashioned way. Inside, nestled in a bed of shredded cardboard, was another box. The inner box was smaller, made of wood, and covered in intricate geometric carvings. Something about the box, about that scratch on the side, about the chip out of the corner, tickled his memory. Running his hand along the side, feeling the grooves of the carving, the roughness of its battle scars, memories cried for his attention, only to flit away the moment he tried to grab hold of them.

He put the box on the table, smiling with something akin to nostalgia as it canted to one side — one of its four small legs was shorter than the others. On the front of the box was a tarnished brass clasp, luckily not locked, though a space for a tiny padlock was drilled into the clasp. A sudden trepidation making his mouth dry, he reached out, flipped open the clasp, and lifted the lid.

Whatever Spencer had thought would be in the box, whatever he expected, the truth surprised him. Inside, a collection of letters and postcards looked back up at him as though saying, “well? You’ve opened it, why not go further?”

“Beautiful Bucharest,” was written across the aged front of the top post card over a picture of the parliament buildings. Flipping it over, Spencer froze, a single tear threading down his cheek as he read and reread the message. “What a surprise this will be when it finally reaches you,” it said. “Here’s to a whirlwind adventure!”

The card was unsigned. But Spencer knew exactly who must have written the words. He had not seen that handwriting in what felt like a lifetime.

Wiping at the tear, he gently laid the card face down on the table and took up the next item in the box. It was a single sheet of paper folded in half to better match the size of the box and the postcards. Unfolding it, Spencer read the words carefully; it had been written nearly twenty-five years before, in a hotel in Bucharest: the very first European hotel that Spencer or his friend had ever stayed in.

“May 27th 1999. The flight here was a lot longer than I thought it would be,” ran the first line of the letter. “I know that Martin told us that it would be a difficult one, nothing like the little jaunts we’ve taken in the Americas but I didn’t expect it to be that long. You’re asleep as I write this, I don’t know where I’m going to keep the letters as I write them. Maybe I’ll get a box. You already know about the postcard, seeing as you watched me buy it. But the rest I think I’ll be able to keep a secret.

“Ah, but it’s good to finally be out here, my friend. Out in the world at last! By the time you read this, I think I’ll be gone. But I want you to know, and I’m not certain how I could possibly tell you, just how much us taking this trip means to me. Out there… there’s a whole world out there, and I can’t wait to see everything it has to offer.

“In the morning, you know, we’re going to see that castle we spotted from the air. We’ve only got a few days in town, barely enough time to get over the jet lag. But we’re going to make the most of it aren’t we? What was it you said before we left, ‘Two idiots in Europe’? Well, my fellow idiot, welcome to the adventure!

“Yours, Nick.”

Spencer set the letter aside before the tears obscuring his vision could hit the yellowed paper. He remembered that first night in Bucharest. He remembered collapsing onto his bed, groaning at the muscle soreness from the monstrously long flight. He remembered Nick sitting down at the small table, switching on the lamp, and saying something about filling out the postcard he had bought. At the time, the postcards had barely registered; Nick never stopped in at post offices anywhere they went, but Spencer simply assumed that he dropped them in letter boxes whenever it was convenient. He didn’t think…

Pulling a piece of paper towel off the roll to dry his eyes, Spencer picked up the next letter. This one was dated four days after the first from a train between Bucharest to Budapest. “The night train to Budapest, and we managed to swing an upgrade to a sleeper? I don’t know about you, you always seem so excited everywhere we go, but I am having the time of my life. Thank you for that.

“I was reading about Budapest while we were waiting for the train to arrive, did you know that the name is a compound word because Buda and Pest are two different cities? I didn’t know that until today. It’s truly incredible to me that we can travel just overnight and be in a completely different place with a completely different language and culture without crossing a space larger than Ontario. It’s madness.

“I know it might be a little gauche, but I’m already looking forward to a little later in the trip. I’ve always wanted to see Istanbul, you know? And when we’re done there, taking the Orient Express to Paris is going to be simply amazing. Do you think they’ll be very angry with me if I do nothing but quote Agatha Christi the whole time? I know you’ll probably wind up killing me if I did that, but I can’t follow in Poirot’s footsteps and not make a show of it. Such a thing would be inexcusable and I fully intend to make you join in my games.

“Yours, Nick.”

Some of the letters were short, others much longer. Each city was commemorated with a postcard and each leg of the trip documented according to what Nick had thought the most important or interesting. The sickness showed itself in the pages, as it had reared its head on their voyage, though Spencer had never before known just how badly his friend was feeling it at the time.

Nick wrote about feeling tired, about chronic pain that would come and go. He wrote about his fears that he would hold the journey back, that the sickness would take away not only his own chance to enjoy himself, but also Spencer’s. They had known, when the trip was planned, that Nick had not had long left. This was going to be their last hurrah but… Spencer hadn’t ever realized how much his friend had been suffering.

A quiet fear re-emerged at the back of his mind. One that he had thought himself long finished with. The nagging guilt that perhaps it had been this trip that had killed Nick. What if, had he just stayed home, he might have gotten better and… but no. No that was silly. There was no getting better from what Nick had had.

Blinking through the tears, Spencer read on. He followed, as though looking through a window into a different life, the path he and his friend took through Europe. The former Soviet Republics, the bustling metropolis of Istanbul, the train west, the awe-inspiring cities of Western Europe, and the breath-taking landscapes of Scandinavia were seen again through new eyes.

When he reached the final postcard, one from the airport in his own hometown that he remembered laughing at Nick for buying, he sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. How ill Nick had looked then, at the end of it all. Maybe the trip had been what finally did for him, but they had made it, damn it. They had seen and done it all.

“You really shouldn’t mock me for my little hobbies,” read the postcard, writing thinner and more spidery. “I’ve got one from everywhere else, why not here too? It’s been a wild ride, Spence. Thank you from the very bottom of my heart. I’ll cherish these memories for as long as I have left. Yours, Nick.”

Carefully replacing everything in the box, a box he now remembered Nick buying in Greece, he closed the lid and dressed to go out. It was snowing, a gentle, persistent snow that looked as though he were on the bridge of the Millennium Falcon going into hyper speed as he drove through it. He needed to get there, tonight of all nights, he needed to get to the spot and talk with his friend.

On the walk to the graveside, he looked like a crow. Hunched in his long, black coat, tuque pulled low against the wind and head pulled into his shoulders. Maybe it wasn’t the best evening to be alone in an old graveyard, maybe he should go back and do this another time. But he could not stop. He needed…

“Hello, old friend,” he said, suddenly feeling so much older than forty-nine. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring you anything today.” He waited, looking down at the well maintained piece of grey stone as though expecting it to answer him. Wiping the top of it clear, the wet snow sticking to his leather glove, he crouched down and cleaned out the carved letters.

“Nicholas Wexler. Son, brother, friend. ‘Life is short, and the world is wide.’ 1975–1999”

“I got your letters, you bastard.” Had Spencer’s voice always sounded like that? Looking in the mirror this morning, hadn’t he wondered when he had gotten so old? He sounded rough now, hoarse from tears that would not fall and sobs that would not sound. “I don’t know why you had them wait so long, or how you even knew where I would be. But thank you.

“You know something? I had almost forgotten that wild night we had in Milan. You gave that back to me today.

“Millie is down visiting her sister in Florida, your package arrived at a good time, she’s brought the kids with her and I stayed home to get some work done so I have all the time in the world to sit around and read through the letters written to me by my best friend a lifetime ago. It’s almost a kind of time travel, isn’t it? Like you reached out of the past and reminded me of who I was.

“Sometimes I wonder,” minutes had passed and Spence was now standing beside the stone, one hand resting on its top, watching the snow fall among the few trees visible from the graveside. “I wonder if you’re out there somewhere, looking down on me. I wonder if you’re proud of the man I am today. If you’re proud of everything I’ve done, if you forgive me for what I was never able to do. My eldest, Nick, he’s gone and gotten accepted to our alma mater, can you believe that? Maybe I couldn’t do everything I wanted to when I was younger, but… but dreams change. I’m going to give your letters to my kids when they get home. I’m going to say to them, ‘look! This is what I got up to when I wasn’t much older than you are now.’

“I’m going to tell stories that I’ve never told before, stories that I’d all but forgotten. Stories that you, twenty-five years ago, sent forward in time for me. I’ll tell them about Milan, about Barcelona and Stockholm, about Athens and the Orient Express. They’ll finally hear everything that we did, all the trouble we managed to make for ourselves and how we got out of it. They’re old enough now… And I remember it all. Un aide de memoir, isn’t that what this is?

“You’ve given me a gift, Nick. It’s almost like you… like you reached out and gave me back my,” his voice broke, the tears finally falling, freezing to his cheeks. He did not dash them away, he did not hold back. Holding the stone for support as he had used to do with his friend’s shoulder, he cried long and hard until the tears were spent.

“I’m going to help my children go on their own adventures. Nick, my eldest will go first. I’ve been fortunate that I have enough money to help him along, just like our folks did for us. He’s always wanted to see the world, and I’m going to help him do it. Just like all those years ago, brother, you’ve gone and inspired me again. I suppose you’d only be disappointed that the box didn’t arrive closer to Christmas.”

With a word of farewell, and a promise to return, Spencer turned and walked slowly back through the grave yard. It was almost full dark by the time he returned to his car and turned back to look into the yard towards his friend’s grave. He imagined that, like in the movies, he could see Nick’s ghost waving him off.

Climbing into his car, he pulled out one of the spare Wendy’s napkins from the glovebox and blew his nose. He needed to get home, there was a lot to do before Millie and the kids got home. He needed to compose himself, and put together the first parts of the plan that would take his eldest on his own grand tour in the summer, after graduation. Maybe the boy’s friend Stephen would be able to go with him. Stephen’s dad and Spencer went way back, and hadn’t the boy always talked about seeing the world?

Plans starting to form, he drove away from the grave yard and remembered his late friend’s favourite saying, repeated up until the end, “life is short. And the world is wide.”