My Love, My Drug, My Release

Chapter 27: Three Gifts

Sorry about the micro-chapter, I'm squeezing in some writing before I go shower and get ready to see my friend. But I think it's a pretty good one, and we do learn quite a bit. Anyway, please enjoy!

Tiptoeing to my room with my presents in tow, I was aware of every tiny creak and groan of the wooden floors, pausing every so often to listen for my family's snores. It wasn't until I made it to my room that my anger bubbled over the top of the container I'd stuffed it in. Why should I be scared of being found out? I was entitled to these gifts; they belonged to me. If Paul or Linda discovered me with them, I would stare them down, make them feel small.

But my self-righteousness couldn't last long; I didn't have the temperament for it. Linda had been granted full custody after the divorce. For all I knew, Dad didn't even have the phone number for this house, just the address he sent his alimony checks to. These gifts were the only way he had to communicate with me, and Paul had stolen them away.

Of course, I couldn't be sure it was Paul, or all his idea, but Linda always gave Jack and me our gifts and cards when we lived with her in New York. No, it had to be him.

I tore open the paper for last year's birthday present first. I hadn't wondered about where it was at the time. Hell, I wasn't even in the country, so how could I? And by the time we got back to St. John's Wood, well, packages were undoubtedly the last thing on my mind. Inside, Dad had enclosed a copy of The Catcher in the Rye. The pages smelled weird, probably from sitting in that linen closet for over a year.

It might seem rude to ignore the cards, but not if you knew my dad. The books were all he cared about, he just attached a note of some kind because Mother loved cards, loved saving the words you'd written to her. She'd died before I was old enough to even sign my name.

I blinked away stupid, useless tears and tore open this past year's Christmas present. Of course, I hadn't wondered about father's missing gift last Boxing Day. It was the first holiday season without Jack. The dark cloud that lingered over me didn't seem to impact Linda much, but maybe she was just trying to appeal to Paul, who couldn't conceal his glee at having my troublesome brother out of his nice, clean house. And, of course, there was Mary. A proper replacement to a displaced child.

The book Dad sent me was another J.D. Salinger novel, except it wasn't a novel. It was a collection of short stories- nine to be exact. 

And the third gift was Franny and Zooey. It was sweet that he'd made the books all go together. If I'd gotten them when I was intended to, it would have been a great reveal, that this new paperback went hand in hand with the last. But I hadn't. That opportunity had been stolen from me. The cards were all perfunctory, none of them containing nearly as personal a note as the one Jack discovered.

Not a single card even mention Jackson, and there were no gifts for him in the linen closet.

If you were familiar with our father, you'd know that he would never miss an opportunity to send a present. He knew his son ran away, he had a legal right to be informed, but, despite that, he would still send something along for Christmases and birthdays. In his mind, it was so Jack would have something to come home to. But this was all I'd found, which meant one thing: Dad had sent a gift along on special occasions, but not to Paul's house.

He knew where my brother was.