Sometimes, the most insignificant thing can become important. For instance, there was no reason to save a receipt from Stop & Shop, except that it got mixed up with lots of other scraps of paper stuffed in a drawer, probably one of those times I emptied my purse and thought I would sort it all out later, but later never came. It was a day I bought baby food and I also bought Barbasol, my father’s brand of shaving cream. It would have been one of those many days I went between my two lives, there with you and your father, and then back to School Street to check in on my father. I never intended to save it (why would I?) and yet, years after the fact, the figures nearly faded, it reminds me how I felt so responsible and torn some days, back and forth, back and forth. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

Hours to days to weeks to years.

It seems I never get to the bottom of that one box filled with notes. I keep finding things.

June 4, 1967

Mom, thank you for not making Rudolf leave even though he ate some of the kitchen floor and scratched up the hall door. He loves me and I love him. He threw up on the floor and is good now. He is sorry. Your son, Jeff Wishart

I never would have made him leave. He did love us—that beautiful, selfless soul, with the perfect poodle coat. The scratches were still there when we left, too, not as obvious—we sanded and painted—but still there. Poor Rudolf died long before those shirts that keep dogs calm in a storm were invented; that would have made such a difference for him. Whenever I say that, your father says it sounds like I’m talking about the polio vaccine or antibiotics, and I say yes, that’s exactly what I’m talking about.

Spring 1988? (pretty sure this is right)

Mom,

I appreciate your questions and offerings of advice and opinion. I do, but I also beg that you please understand my need to handle this my own way and in my own time. You have never been divorced, and so there is a lot you really do not know, even if you have read a lot of books. Trust me on this. Your whole life has been defined by losing your mother young and wishing that she had been there to advise you at every turn (or thinking you do), but that is not my story. I hope you will understand when I say that I do not need any more advice. I just don’t. I am doing fine and need for you to treat me like the adult I am.

Love, Rebecca

June 21, 1982

Dear Mrs. Wishart,