Part IV: Spin – Special Delivery #2 (Chapter 77)
The
letter arrived Special Delivery on a bitter, snowy Sunday afternoon, addressed
to Nana and Pappa. I had never heard of Special Delivery. That is, until I
signed for this letter addressed in an unfamiliar hand to “Mr. & Mrs.
Charles W. Mallory” from a “Mr. Johnny Lawrence,” a name only vaguely familiar.
I had heard the name somewhere, but I had never met this Mr. Lawrence.
Nana
and Pappa weren’t expecting a Special Delivery letter; they had not mentioned
such a possibility before leaving the house. Hours ago, they had gone out
visiting – my Aunt Gwen, Uncle Joe, and their six kids – and weren’t supposed
to come back until after supper.
After
signing “Samantha Anne Mallory” to a green card in my looping handwriting, I
watched the Special Delivery man stumble through a snow drift to his car.
I
stared at the outer envelope, searching for clues, anything that might hint of
the message inside, but finding nothing.
I
held the letter up to the light: only spider blue veins of overlapping and
folded together letters, a cryptic message inside and no way to decode it
without ripping open the envelope.
Don’t even think about it,
Samantha Anne.
Opening
other people’s mail was probably against the law, surely a sin.
Probably a mortal sin.
The
thing called to me, “Open me! Open me! Open me!” – the message inside certainly
urgent, complicated, and very, very bad.
I
sighed and placed the letter in front of Nana’s and Pappa’s anniversary clock
on the TV and watched as the second hand crawled around the clock face, the
pendulum, four gold balls turning to and fro, keeping perfect time, slow time.
Please come home!
But
Nana and Pappa would not be home for hours yet; I kept glancing out the window,
just in case.
I
switched on the TV: a golf match from Florida on channel 9 and cartoons on
channel 4. Off again.
Options
limited.
I
turned on the radio and tuned to KMNS. Elvis.
The
Fab Four would not hit American shores and airwaves until next month.
I
called Chrissy’s house: no one home.
I
walked over to the clock and picked up the letter. How light it was, like
tissue paper, ephemeral, as if it could dissolve into pieces, the important
message scattering in the wind, lost forever.
Please don’t leave me alone with
this Special Delivery letter!
On
the back of the envelope, a pink clock face was stamped with an arrow pointing
between “12” and “1,” “PM” stamped in the middle of the circle. The date on the
postmark was blurred, but the city was not: Canoga Park, Calif.
Where
I used to live, where Mother still lived. But the return address on the letter
was not my mother’s.
I’d
never find out the contents of the letter unless I read it myself.
I
had to know.
Something
important was in the offing, something having to do with my future, I was
certain.
Maybe
Nana and Pappa were going to send me away to boarding school after all. Or back
to my mother in California!
Yes,
that was it. I was going back to California. That was why the letter was sent
Special Delivery from Canoga Park. People don’t make complicated arrangements
by telegram or by long-distance, but they might in a Special Delivery letter.
A
letter so special that it arrived on a Sunday.
Maybe
this Mr. Johnny Lawrence was a special person whose job was to make
arrangements for getting rid of unwanted kids.
I
had heard of such people, but they were usually doctors who got rid of babies
before they were born, not kids already alive.
Maybe
Nana and Pappa had grown tired of me. Maybe I ate too much, and they couldn’t
afford to keep me anymore. Maybe I had grown too ugly and fat, and all my Sioux
City relatives were ashamed of me.
Maybe
I was just too stupid.
Maybe,
Maybe, Maybe, Maybe, Maybe...
I had to know what was in that letter.
