Free Finding Grace by Alyssa Brugman

elf or a fairy, sitting on a big velvet cushion with her skinny legs folded up underneath her. I just look uncomfortable and get pins and needles.
    She was depressed about splitting up with Maxwell (again). Kate and Maxwell have been together since forever, but they break up for about twenty-four hours every couple of months. She laughs about it when it's not happening. But this particular time she was in the depths of despair. This time was
forever
.
    Yeah, sure.
    She said she'd been going through the Maxwell parts of her spooky box.
    “What's a spooky box?”
    “You know, the box from which you conjure your ghosts.”
    “I haven't got a spooky box.”
    “Yes you have, everyone's got a spooky box. Some people have a spooky drawer, some people have a spooky cupboard, or a spooky room. My grandma has a spooky house.”
    I looked into Kate's spooky box. “A train ticket,” I say. “There's nothing spooky about that.”
    “Not for you, maybe. When I bought that ticket, Maxwell and I had been fighting all day.”
    Kate and Maxwell always fight all day—not that you can tell. Maxwell always stands around looking bored and surly, so it's difficult to tell if he's being grumpy or just cool.
    I have always thought that Maxwell behaves like someone waiting impatiently to go somewhere else. I've had a drink with them a few times after work. Kate goes to a particular pub that is decorated with old-fashioned colonial-looking things like horse harnesses and crates and rusty farming equipment, liberally draped across every flat surface.
    In
complete
contrast with the “homestead” theme, this particular pub plays ska to the exclusion of almost all other musical styles (except, of course, for reggae, which grinds alarmingly against rustic charm).
    So, we went to this pub, and everyone's supercool, sort of wriggling to the music because they're too cool to dance with any vigor. Maxwell wouldn't sit down. He would stand a few meters away with his back to us, one hand in his pocket, waiting, even if it was for hours.
    I found it really irritating because whenever Kate wanted to talk to him he couldn't hear her, and she'd have to say everything two or three times.
    In every conversation I have ever had with him I have had the overwhelming impression that he's trying to windup the conversation so he can leave.
How are you, Maxwell? Fine, fine (quick look at his watch)
. No wonder they fight all the time. He would drive me insane.
    Anyway, Kate is sitting on her velvet cushion with the contents of her spooky box in little piles on the floor in front of her. She clutches the train ticket to her bosom. “We got on that train so exhausted from yelling at each other …”
    Maxwell yells?
    “… that we fell asleep. When we woke up, we had slept through our stop and two hours of stops after that. We ended up in this tiny little town. It was freezing cold and windy and it was six hours before the next train would come through to take us back.”
    Kate sighs. Her lower lip is quivering.
    She's such a drama queen.
    “We went to this little pub. We drank black beer. We played pool with the locals and we listened to this wizened old man. He had a face like a walnut. He must have been about a hundred. He read poetry and played the clarinet. He was one of the best performers I have ever heard in my whole life. That was one of the funnest afternoons I have ever had, even if we did get fined for fare evasion.”
    Then Kate started to cry. So I struggled out of my velvet cushion and left.

Grace was lying on her side, snoring softly now, so I wiped the dust from the top of the spooky box, took off the lid and laid it upside down on the desk.
    The box was stuffed full of pieces of paper, some yellowing and wrinkly on the edges, photos in plastic sleeves, birthday cards, letters, just the sorts of things I had expected.
    I felt a little bit guilty, but I picked up the first piece of paper, propped up my feet on the computer tower and read.
    Dear