Driving through the Tears

Driving through the tears was easier than it should have been. The rain outside didn’t make the drive through the back roads better, but instead made the world uniform through smudge and splotch.

Eric and Daniel had been close friends once. They hadn’t spoken since high school—junior year, if Daniel remembered right. The inevitable drift of high school had slowly ebbed them away from each other, and their friendship had gone to a quiet grave—or so Daniel had thought.

Daniel’s mother told him the news over the phone. “He wanted you to come.” And he did. He was on his way back to the small town where nothing changed. Work had been the easy part to get around; he had just been fired. The hard part for him was the trip down Memory Lane, the literal name of the road that led into his hometown. He hadn’t been back in almost twelve years, and he couldn’t tell if the town hadn’t changed or if he was still the same.

The funeral was in the town’s only church. “Eric Strother,” the pastor began. “Lived a quiet life.” That was one the longer sentences in the eulogy. Daniel had to find out more about Eric’s life after the funeral.

Eric had left with the hopes of never returning after graduation. He started a decent career but then he had to move back to town to take care of his bed-ridden mother, and he hadn’t escaped since. The folks who saw him around never saw him dour or angry; despite moving back to where he’d hoped to escape from, he never seemed upset to be where he was, not even when he’d been diagnosed. Daniel liked hearing about that; he wasn’t happy at all with his life.

The funeral procession was where Daniel felt the most out of touch. Everyone had wonderfully nice things to say to Eric’s mother, who’d been brought by his cousins. People moved along, touching her shoulder or taking her hand, whispering platitudes or condolences or telling her how missed he would be. When his turn came, Daniel didn’t know what to say to the woman sitting in the chair. I’m sorry for your loss? He was gone too soon? He deserved to do more in life?

Eric’s mother looked up sharply, alert unlike how she looked at the people who’d passed before him. “Daniel.” Her voice was raspy from grief, strain, or maybe misuse. Maybe all three. “Eric had something for you,” she said. Daniel blinked, stunned by her changed demeanor and her words. “It should be arriving soon.” The grief in his chest tightened. Why would Eric have something for him? They’d been friends, sure, a long time ago, but they hadn’t spoken in close to ten years.

The rest of the day seemed to carry on around but without him. The funeral procession left the church, reconvening at the gravesite, and then people went their separate ways.

Daniel sat alone in the evening air on the front porch of his old home. He couldn’t stop hearing Mrs. Strother’s words. Eric had something for you. It should be arriving soon. What was that supposed to mean? Eric and Daniel had drifted. There shouldn’t be anything for him. Everything should go to his mother. Why did Eric specifically want him there?

He couldn’t handle not knowing anymore. Daniel found himself outside of the Strother residence. Eric’s mother still lived in the same house from his high school days. It even looked the same.

Daniel knocked. He waited, not expecting an answer to come.

Mrs. Strother opened the door. “Daniel? Has it come yet?” He didn’t know what “it” was yet, but he said nothing and nodded. Mrs. Strother looked him over deeply, checking his hands, his face, his eyes. She looked at him with suspicion and said, “No. It hasn’t yet.” And she closed the door.

Daniel stood there, mildly shocked but not sure what to have expected. He raised his hand to knock again but dropped it back down to his side. Maybe later he would come back and try to ask her again. But he still didn’t know what to ask. Maybe later he would know.

He made his way back to his old home, his mother’s house. It was only a few blocks away, like everything in the tiny town. He hoped the walk would help him clear his head. Maybe he would know what to ask Mrs. Strother when he made it home.

Maybe he would figure out where he wanted to be in life.

He made it to the front door of his mother’s house, pulled the key out of his pocket, slid it into the door, and stopped. He looked down again, at the dark shape that blended in with the edge of the concrete patio and the hedge bush beneath the window. It was too dark to be part of the patio, too rectangular to be the cat, and felt too real for him to ignore. Daniel unlocked the door, grabbed the handle on the top of the briefcase and went into his old home.

He gently settled the briefcase on the mattress in his room—his old room. All of his stuff was gone now, and his mother had moved extra linens, sewing supplies, and fabrics into the room. Not his room.

The briefcase sat starkly against the bright fabrics of the quilt on his temporary bed. It was black with golden latches and a simple handle in the middle. It felt too important to take his eyes from it, but Daniel was too hesitant to open it immediately. Flashes of news stories flicked through his head of strange things left to relatives in wills. He didn’t want to open it and find a desiccated hand or the lost Holy Grail. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure this was even the “it” that Mrs. Strother had foreshadowed.

You’re lying, Daniel told himself. Something about the briefcase was too important to not be what Eric had left him. He wasn’t sure where that surety came from, but he knew it more than he knew anything else. This was what Eric had left him.

He took a breath, and Daniel opened the briefcase.

The next morning Daniel was in front of Mrs. Strother’s house again. It was well after sunrise and the coffee and donuts in his hands made knocking difficult. She answered the door as she had last night. She looked him up and down again, peering through his eyes into his soul. “It came.” She concluded. Daniel nodded again, and she shuffled back into the house, expecting him to follow. He did, awkwardly trying to close the door with his foot without spilling or dropping anything.

He met Mrs. Strother at the dining table. He placed her coffee in front of her, and her donut on a napkin beside it. Her eyes were far away as he sat across from her.

“Where did it come from?” he asked. He knew she would know.

Mrs. Strother shook her head. “Eric never said.”

Daniel paused, hoping for actual answers. “Did he ever say who sent it?”

She shook her head again. “He said it didn’t matter. Said that even if he knew, it wouldn’t matter, because it didn’t change the mission. It wouldn’t change what he had to do.”

“What is it that he had to do?” he asked.

She frowned, her eyes finally moving from her distant memories to him. “Didn’t it come with instructions? Did you not read the journal?” Daniel shook his head. He’d been too tense to contemplate opening the small black notebook that came within the briefcase. He reached into his jacket and pulled the notebook out; while he had not opened it, he didn’t think he was supposed to leave it or its attachment alone.

Mrs. Strother’s eyes locked onto the notebook as he placed it between them on her dining table. Her eyes told him to open it, but she said nothing.

Daniel opened the cover. On the inside were three rules, written in the most confident handwriting he’d ever seen.

Rule 1. The money is not yours.

Rule 2. Spare no expense.

Rule 3. Leave their life better than it was before they met you.

Daniel read it over three times and then showed it to Mrs. Strother. She read it over herself, nodding, and returned it to Daniel’s hand. He placed it on the table and pulled out the other item from the briefcase. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

She only glanced at the large stack of cash between them, and then directly at Daniel. She reached out and tapped the closed notebook. “Do what it says. Find the next name. Get to work.” She looked up, squinting at the clock mounted high on the wall. “I think you better get going. The work has to get done.”

Daniel returned the notebook and the money—an absurd amount to carry in cash—to his jacket pocket, clenching his hand around it. Mrs. Strother kindly ushered him out of her house and began to close the door when he asked aloud, “why me?”

She left the door open a crack large enough for Daniel to peer into one eye. “Why did Eric give this to me?” Mrs. Strother only eyed him, searching his face for something. He saw tears gathering in her eyes and felt selfish that he hadn’t considered her need to mourn. “Read the journal.” And then she closed the door.

Daniel sat alone back in his old room.

He opened the journal and reread the rules written on the inside of the cover. He turned the page and found names from top to bottom, listed out every other line in a single column mostly toward the center of the page. They were all crossed out, some with a single line through the middle, some a diagonal slash, or an elongated X. He didn’t recognize any on the first page.

He turned the page. He still did not see any names he knew. He turned the page again. Still nothing.

On the sixth page he found not one name he knew, but several; some of them were older folk from town. As he turned the pages again and again, Daniel found more and more names he knew, some older and some younger. They were all at the funeral, he realized. They had had all the nice things to say about Eric.

On the last page he turned, Daniel found the last name that had been crossed off, and a small piece of paper folded and tucked between the pages.

Daniel,

If you’re reading this, I’m glad you came. This wouldn’t be read by you if you hadn’t come.

A year after I moved back home, I was on the verge of committing suicide. The little black book you’ve found—and the calling that goes with it—saved my life, and countless others. I wish I had time to explain it to you before the cancer took me, but I think one of the job requirements is not being prepared for the job in the first place.

The first case is yours—contrary to the first rule, it’s my gift to you. Use it how you see fit. There will be no consequences, but be warned: the cases that follow are not yours, and do carry consequences if you don’t follow the rules.

Do your best where you can with what you have—which is actually going to be quite a bit from now on.

Take care, my friend.

--Eric.

Daniel looked at the last name crossed off in the journal.

It was his name.