I’ve spent the last few weeks with her trying to help her get acclimated to the changes in her life, but also trying to get the house more organized so workers could find what she wants more easily. I’ve gone through drawers and boxes, closets and cupboards, and more than once I’ve found some artifact from my childhood that made me smile or tear up a little.

Then last Thursday I was going through a guest room closet when I found a cardboard box I had never seen before. When I opened it, musty air blossomed in my nostrils as confusion and a kind of sad anger filled my heart.

It was packages from my father. Three of them. Things that must have come while they were fighting, things that she hid from me out of spite or pettiness or whatever dark emotion told her it was okay to keep reminders of a father’s love from their child. The boxes were well-wrapped and had never been opened, and in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, I found myself hoping that this was all a mistake. That these weren’t gifts from my father she had hidden from me at all.

But they were. The first was a small set of books about animals in the Outback. The second was a koala family that would link together with magnets to form a long chain. The third was a small, ornately carved wooden box.

The box stood out the most, both because it was unique and because it seemed like an odd gift for an eleven-year old girl. It was similar in size to a pencil box, and maybe my father thought I was getting old enough I’d want to keep jewelry in it or something. It also stood out because of the suggestion that something might be inside. It had thick metal hinges on the back of the lid, and the front was secured by a hasp lock ran through with a flat piece of the same metal that secured the hasp when twisted horizontally.

I was reaching to turn the metal and undo the hasp when I noticed there was a small piece of yellowed paper underneath it in the box it had been shipped in. I felt my vision growing blurry as I saw my father’s handwriting on the note written there. It said:

I bought this from an old man who came to our worksite yesterday. Poor guy looked like he needed money to eat, and he said this box was special. He said there was a bunyip trapped inside it! I asked him what a bunyip was, and he just laughed. He said I should open the box and find out.

But don’t worry. I already checked it out before sending it to my girl. The only thing that is in there is a cool-looking river rock. But the box is neat too, right?