Completing The List

5. Attend another meeting

     Lizzy and Anna had looked over the list over the next few days, and even though Anna wanted to attack the easy chores first, Lizzy refused to cherry pick the tasks and do them all in the order they were written in. She had sent the papers the lawyer brought over and ordered her attorney to accept the settlement offer and take the money. Lizzy's lawyer had tried to talk her out of it but realized quickly this is what Lizzy wanted and made sure it went through. Now with the money to keep her apartment without worrying about going back to work was a good thing, and they were free to started working on the list to complete Hayden's goals. Anna and Lizzy were making notes and thinking about what the first task could be about. The fifth task read: attend another meeting. Both women were stumped to what it might have meant. Anna was as stumped she felt the need to break out more wine. Another benefit to taking the money was a well stocked fridge and Anna took full advantage of that since she was asked to stay there.

     "Maybe he was a member of a club, you know one that held meetings and did good things for the community." Anna said, pitching ideas out loud.

     "If he was going to meetings like that, I would have known about it. There would be some kind of uniform around here somewhere and I looked through his clothes again to see of any said anything about a club or organization." Lizzy replied, rubbing her temples trying to figure this out. Neither of them could come up with an answer, but help came a few hours later in the form of Danny, Lizzy's brother. He had come just before supper, since he had offered to cook. When he arrived, he was carrying a box in his arms. It wasn't huge, but enough to make it a chore core for him to carry in. Her brother walked into the living room and placed it on the dining room table.

     "What is this?" Anna asked with a weird look on her face.

     "I stopped at Hayden's firehouse before I came here." Danny replied, "They knew I was coming over and asked me to tale it with me since I was going this way to see you."

     "What is it" Lizzy asked, since he didn't answer it the first time.

     "They cleaned out Hayden's locker last month. This is everything from it. I thought you could look for clues that might help you with the list." he opened the box and all three of them started to look through his stuff.

     "The list?" Anna said as she turned to Lizzy. "You told him?"

     "Why not?" Lizzy answered, "I had no intention of keeping it a secret from everyone."

     "Wine?" Anna said as she held up another bottle.

     "I'm fine, thanks for offering." Danny answered.

     They both went back to taking stuff out and looking for something that might give them any clues to what some of the list was referring to. The answer to one of them came when Lizzy reached into a pocket of his jacket and found something. It was a coin, a very big coin that she didn't recognize.

     "What on earth is this?" she asked out loud.

     "I have no idea." Anna said as she leaned over to look at it.

     "It's a sobriety coin." Danny answered.

      Both Lizzy and Anna stopped looking at the coin and both locked their eyes on Danny.

     "How did you know that?" Lizzy asked her brother.

     Danny put down what he had in his hands and took a deep breath. He then dug into his pocket and pulled out another coin and put it on the table in front of them. "As you can see, my coin has a different number. It represents how many years the person who owns it has been sober. My coin represents two years, while Hayden's represents five. If my math is right, he's been sober ever since you guys got married."