Chasing Sevens

Chapter Six

6

The next morning flew by as I bounced ideas around in my head. It was the first day I'd had off from school and work in quite some time and it was nice to have a day to relax. In an ideal world, I'd be catching up on all the assignments I missed out on, but I couldn't concentrate.

I kept my notebook with me as I caught up on the housework, logging idea after idea until my old freebie political pen finally ran out of ink. I crossed my fingers that Grandpa had left some more around the house museum. Opening the closet door, I dug around through a stack of boxes. Sure enough, a shoebox of old ballpoint pens and a notepad were buried there, and I grabbed a sheet of paper, scribbling with each one. Only two of them still had working ink.

One had "Moonview Community Day 1992" etched into the side. On the other one, the font was just stamped on, so the majority of the letters had faded off. I tried to piece together what ones were missing, but I was never any good at those newspaper puzzles. The notepad read "Elect John Leonard for City Council 1988" in its yellowing margins—over twenty years old and every page was curled in the corner. Grandpa kept everything. He'd said when he was growing up, it was a different time and we wouldn't understand.

When I went to toss out the non-working pens, I found an old leather billfold. The State ID read "Richard Tobias Overland." I dumped its contents onto the floor—a pile of coins totaling 71 cents, a free ice cream coupon that had expired in '07, a business card for a lawn care company, my mom's school photo, and a wrinkled five-dollar bill in the money clip.

I took the cash from the clip, about to put it into my own pocket when I noticed a folded sheet of paper in the inner pouch hadn't fallen out. The creases were nearly ripped at the seam as if it had endured countless years of unfolding. "Luv you Pop" was written in big bold letters in green crayon. A couple of the letters were scribbled out in error and what looked to be a poorly drawn race car was below them. My own name was signed directly under it—half capitals, half lowercase. Grandpa kept everything. I shoved all the boxes back into the closet and slammed the door shut before they could tumble back out. I didn't need help missing him.

I spent the rest of the morning curled up on the couch writing lyrics. After such a busy week of serving, it felt good to have some time to myself. I really needed to give it a higher priority.

I rounded up my hoard of quarters and lugged two zipper bags of laundry out toward the truck, but when I opened the door to the trailer, something dropped and got caught up in it. My shirt tumbled off the doorknob and onto the porch—the one I'd lent to Seven. I picked it up and a piece of paper fell out. I dove down to grab it, rescuing it seconds before the breeze lifted it off.

Thanks for letting me borrow this. Didn't get around to going to the laundromat to wash it, but thought you'd want it back sooner rather than later. Add it back into your rotation. See ya at school.

- Seven

Her name was signed at the bottom in blue ink. She'd come by and hadn't so much as knocked. I wondered if she'd stopped by with Max and what story she'd warped for him about that night—what tale she'd crafted. Could she trust him with the truth the way she could with me? Would he have traded places with her? Transferred the pain of the piercing glass to his own self if it meant she'd never blink back a tear?