The Hatbox

The Hatbox / Chapter 3

As she looked in the mirror, she told herself that she needed to slow down with the boxes. Her eyes resembled the one time that she had sun poison as a little girl. Nearly swollen shut with layers of red and her face looked nearly as unrecognizable.

"I'll just look at the one box today," she promised herself. She didn't sleep well again, so it was too early to call the clerk to check on the deed. There was no sense in trying to go back to sleep. Sleep was allusive.

She popped a bagel in the toaster and started the coffee pot....and again cried. She even tried not to look at her mom's favorite coffee cup. It seemed the harder she diverted her gaze, the more intense the need grew to look at it. She reached up to touch it, then withdrew her hand. Not really sure why.

She laid the hatbox in the center of the kitchen table. She took a seat in front of it and positioned her bagel and coffee nearby. As she bit into her bagel, she took a deep breath then eased the top of the box off and began to lay the contents out onto the table in some orderly fashion. Letters in a pile. Other paper items in another pile, and lastly the "other" pile which began with the container of sand.

There were multiple ferry tickets discovered and each one was to the same location, memorializing a special place for her mom. Her guilt began to rise as she cautiously watched the letter pile grow. Wanting so badly to read them and hoping her mom would forgive her curiosity. It wasn't as though it was a nosiness that gave her the impulse to read them. It was a need. A need for something else. Like a feeling of not quite having her gone. Sure, it wasn't the healthiest to think this way. Like trying to ignore that she was gone, but it felt less lonely to "learn" something new about her mom. She suddenly felt certain that her mom would forgive her.

She took another bite of her bagel, which wasn't getting any easier to eat. She reached for her coffee again, washing the bagel down her dry throat.

She picked up more and more letters from the box, the pile growing faster by the second, when she noticed the postmark appeared to date over several years. But a detail she hadn't quite thought of before now was how exactly "all" of the hatbox contents were related. Of course, they were. But the extent of it hadn't dawned on her until she saw that the return address, on Brett's letters, was also Oak Island. Had her mom been seeing this man for all these years? That's impossible, she just knew it. Her mom wasn't the kind of person who led a double life. But the facts were pointing towards the house and the mystery man. So the facts were that her mom owned a house, a house that she didn't tell them she owned, in a town that "Brett" lived. What was going on? Just as she was about to open a letter, any letter at this point, just to satisfy her insatiable curiosity, her eyes noticed the time on her phone.... 9:05 am.

The Clerk's office is open.

Her heart leapt out of her chest. She might soon know one more piece of the puzzle. Was this deed current?

She laid the letters, not fully organized, back down into the box in a rush to finally know the answer to what had been bothering her all night.

"Yes, Ma'am, Nora Chandler. That was her maiden name, her married name is Moore," Everly explained to the office clerk who answered the call.

"Can you hold?"

"Of course."

A long silence continued as Everly held the deed in her hand. She flipped the document back and forth, studying the back, then the front, as if the motion would provide further info or solve the impending question.

"Mrs. Moore?"

"I'm here."

"Yes, I do see that the deed is still in your mother's name."