Dear Bailey

Part 20

Lucas

Five boxes. That's how many I was able to take with me. One of them is for my brother. He had to leave a lot of things when he moved to Texas. I packed up a few of his trophies and some of his older xbox games he couldn't take with him. I don't know when I'll get a chance to give them to him, but at least I know that he didn't have to give up everything just because we lost our mom.

When I got to Florida, I rented a car so that I could take care of the business I needed to. After putting the five boxes in the back of the tiny compact sedan, I sat outside the house and watched as the wind blew the for sale sign back and forth. The money from the house would help my brother go to college and would make life a little easier for me, too. The rain began to pour down and I chuckled a little at how fitting it was that it was raining on at that particular moment. My grandma would have loved it. She always loved when life imitated her soap operas.

I found the windshield wiper knob and turned it to full speed. I wondered if it was raining in Miami. With everything cleared out and the house on the market, I was free to leave Florida. I wondered when Bailey was going back to California as I drove back to Violet's house for the night. I hoped she would let me keep the boxes in her garage until I was able to come back for them. The only box I really wanted to take with me was the one filled with handwritten letters from my grandparents.

I stumbled upon the old shoebox under my grandma's bed. Inside I found a year's worth of letters she'd exchanged with my grandpa when he was stationed overseas. They weren't married yet, so he traveled unaccompanied while she stayed back and finished high school. I had a feeling I was going to learn a lot about the two of them through the old fashioned correspondence. Inside the old box was also a tiny bible he had carried with him. A very nice surprise, especially since he had tucked a picture of my grandma between the pages that I had never seen before.

The plan was to finish out the week there in Florida, then head back to base to catch up with my unit. If Bailey and I didn't manage to get together in Florida, I wasn't sure when we'd ever get the chance to see each other again.