Free Eli the Good by Silas House

but it was important that she go to the Rexall and pick it out herself. Josie wanted a new bathing suit, and although she said it would be much cooler if Charles Asher would come and take her to town, my mother insisted that she had to help her choose the suit, since Josie would come home with a bikini otherwise. After the big gas shortages of a couple years before, smart people like my mother only went into town once a week, so after enough planning to take a trip overseas, she and Stella and Nell and Josie all loaded into my mother’s amber-colored Cougar and drove into Refuge for groceries, swimwear, and a toothbrush.
    I was lectured to stay close to the house. Even though I was no baby, Mom had never completely gotten over seeing
The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case
on television a few months ago and stayed in fear of my being snatched away. I acted as if I was put out by her concern, but secretly I relished these moments of motherly action on her behalf.
    I stood in the front yard and waved to them as if they’d be gone a very long time, and as soon as they were out of sight, I sprinted to Edie’s and found her sitting by her willow tree.
    Edie wasn’t crazy about the idea of going into my parents’ bedroom, but her curiosity outweighed her trepidation, so she followed along when I told her what I wanted to do.
    When we made our way into my parents’ bedroom, my stomach flipped up at the corners. I knew what an invasion of privacy I was committing. I didn’t fear being caught; instead I dreaded lying awake and feeling guilty about this for nights to come. We were not a family who went to church much — both my parents believed that God could be best served by being the best people they could and treating everyone right and being thankful for all they had — so my guilt was not the kind that is created or fostered. I was simply made that way: a boy who cared too deeply for everything and therefore felt that any wrong in the world was partly my fault. In retrospect I see that this is a good way to be, but it also makes for a miserable existence.
    The shades were drawn so that their room was as dark and cool as a cave. Everything was immaculate. My mother couldn’t stand to go anywhere without first making her bed. On the dresser, one side was devoted to Daddy’s cologne and a leaf-shaped dish that held tie tacks (which were never worn, since he never wore ties). The other was reserved for Mom’s Charlie perfume, a bowl for hair barrettes, and last year’s picture of Josie and me, which had been taken at the fire department. In the middle sat the big cedar box that my mother had bought in Texas. I had seen her carry important things into her bedroom, bound for the box, enough to know that this was her hiding place for letters and souvenirs.
    I put my hands on either side of the box and sat in the floor, Edie nearby. When I lifted the lid, the scent of cedar washed up over our faces, musky and cold, like the inside of an ancient tree.
    In the box were my parents’ marriage certificate, both my and Josie’s birth certificates, a collection of movie-ticket stubs, a dried-up flower that looked like a shrunken, darkened version of the rose my mother had worn on her wedding dress. There was a ring with a small, brownish pearl; three of my or Josie’s baby teeth in a baby-food jar; and a yellow Juicy Fruit wrapper that had
I am yours
written on its white side in slanting, cramped pencil. This was my father’s handwriting, which I liked to study on the little receipts he wrote out for his customers at the gas station garage. There were deeds and insurance papers and many saved Hallmark cards (mostly from my father) and a postcard from the Mississippi University for Women with
I am here if you need me
scrawled across the back. And below all of this was the stack of letters, bound together by a black ribbon. The letters were housed in small white envelopes that had red-and-blue borders around the edges. Each was addressed to