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Disclaimer: Pretender characters are property of MTM, TNT, NBC, WB, Steve, Craig and all the others.

The Box


She is leaning against the wall when he walks in. He doesn’t have to knock anymore (though he does so anyway), nor sneak in and first judge her temper. He just stands silent and waits for her to acknowledge him. It works best this way. She always knows when he’s there, whether he’s silent or not. It’s when she doesn’t speak at all that he worries, and prompts her.

“Miss Parker?”

“What is it, Broots?” Her voice is quiet, much lower in tone than his high-pitched, rather squeaky one. He clears his throat and tries to pretend like he isn’t bothered by it, by the stoniness of her voice.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, but I, uh… I found something I thought maybe you’d like to see.”

She turns her head slowly but does not move and does not unfold her arms. She continues to lean against the wall, just as she was when he walked in, and waits for him to speak.

“I know you didn’t ask, but I thought maybe you’d um, you’d-”

“Spit it out, Broots.”

He shifts, not because of her words but because they lack the sharpness they used to possess, the kind that made him twitch and cower. Now they are just dead words in her mouth, falling like ashes. He sweeps them into a pile and tries to hand them back to her; a file, small and light in weight that he passes to her.

“Okay. Well, um, here. I hope… I hope maybe it gives you a little peace.”

She doesn’t raise an eyebrow and doesn’t snatch the file away. She waits until he places it on her desk and leaves the office before turning her attention back out the window.

**

The box is small and fits in both her hands with ease. It is dusty and fragile, loose hinges and reeking with abandonment. The box has never known love or care, has never seen sunlight. But it was carefully made, intricate with designs carved into the wood. A small angel in one corner, tangled in vines all around. The box does not have thorns because it begs to be touched, to be opened, to have the dust blown from its curved roof and have sunlight dry the damp that has seeped into it from the cold of living below the earth for so long.

That’s where she found it. Far below the earth, in a box, in a box, in a box, in a box. Not so much in the earth itself, but closer to hell than it could have reached if it had gone that way. No, this box was twenty-six levels deep and 18 rows along, four panels in and inside one lockbox, resting where it had been for thirty years.

She runs her fingers along the vines, dust billowing just about the surface. The box isn’t locked by anything other than her unwillingness to open it.

So it sits, dusty and dark for days on her table, only cleaned in the places her fingers have traced the vines, and on the face of the angel who looks at her with sad eyes that have never seen sun.

*

She opens the door with a smile that falters and then returns brighter than before. “Miss Parker.” She says her name as if she’s received a gift and without an invitation hugs the woman. She’s the only one to do so and live to do it again. She doesn’t notice that she stiffens, and gently pushes the girl back, but not without a small smile.

“Hello, Debbie.”

Debbie understands her reaction but not her reasoning. “Why… why are you here? I mean, not that you can’t be here, it’s just, you’re never here…”

Miss Parker attempts a reassuring smile (she doesn’t know if it succeeds or fails). “Business, actually. Is your dad home?”

“Yeah.” She nods and turns her head and hollers into the house. There’s some clanking and clattering and a few muffled words that from anyone else might have been curses but not from this man who appears and puts both hands on his daughter’s shoulders and pretends not to be surprised.

“Oh. Miss Parker. What brings you here?”

“Business,” Debbie answers for her, and smiles and winks at Miss Parker. Miss Parker smiles back.

“Oh. Okay, uh, Debbie why don’t you go see if Nancy’s home?” Her father pushes her forward slightly, away from the business.

“Sure.”

“Do you want to come in?” He offers, knowing she’ll refuse.

“No, that’s fine.” She shakes her head and shifts just slightly, enough to confuse him.

“Are you alright?”

She nods, but at the same time closes herself off with her arms and (despite the sunglasses) he can see that she isn’t looking directly into his eyes as she usually does, but down just slightly, at the bridge of his nose.

“I, uh… I just… I wanted to thank you. For the information, it… it means a lot to me…” she stops to regain the voice she’s lost. “…to have it.”

He nods, because he cannot think of another gesture, and stutters just slightly. “Of course. Yeah, no problem. I uh… I was hoping it might help… even a little.”

“Yeah.” She wishes momentarily she could tell him just how much it did. “Well, I just wanted to swing by…”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll see you back at The Centre.”

“Yeah.”

She turns, and he wishes he could have asked if it was enough.

**

The day she imagined was the day she chose, little or no sun, wind that blows in one direction so as not to confuse the dust and scatter it in more than one place.

She removes the box from the passenger’s seat and holds it in both hands. The wind blows the dust off the top and sides and she can see the pale wood clearly now, how old it is, how frail. It was in the dark too long; she’s afraid the angel will never fly.

She thinks maybe she should say something, but she feels too silly speaking deep thoughts to a box, even if the angel wouldn’t mind listening.

The vines beg to be unwound.

She moves to the edge where the slope descends sharply into a pool of green valley and coloured flowers.

She holds the box in both hands, but doesn’t move the hinges. For an hour she stands and lets the wind blow in one direction, lets the sun refuse to shine and without words tells the angel her fears:

She’s afraid she will never fly.

**

“Good morning, Sydney.”

“Morning, Broots.”

“Has Miss Parker left yet?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“It’s nearly midnight.”

There is a pause, not the kind that carry conversation but the kind that strive to put a stop to it. He over comes the pause and asks very quietly, “She’s not okay, is she?”

Neither answer because the question answers itself as she walks in the door.

“I’m going home, boys. Get some rest, you both look like hell.”

But it doesn’t carry like it used to. There’s no zest, no barb involved. It’s a weak shot and she knows it. But she has to say something otherwise what would she say?

“Miss Parker.” Sydney rises quickly and grabs his coat from the chair. “Let me walk you.”

She concedes and they walk side by side through the deserted halls. Behind them the lights in the tech room flip off and Broots exits the opposite way.

“Do you believe in angels, Syd?” She asks very quietly, because it’s not a question she’s supposed to ask.

“Yes,” he answers with equal lowness. “I have always believed there is someone watching over us.”

“People we love?”

“And people who love us.”

She says nothing more, but their steps have grown closer and before they lose the moment, he reaches out his hand to take hers gently and is relieved yet saddened when she does not pull away.

**

“You haven’t done it yet, have you?”

“Is it any of your business?”

“No, but I am curious.”

“Curious?” She shakes her head and buries her anger. “Wrong word, Jarod.”

“I didn’t always know.”

He tries to cover for himself, but she is angry and that he cannot escape.

“You knew long enough.”

“I couldn’t give it all to you at once, Miss Parker. It would have been too much. You know that.”

“Five years was too long Jarod. You know that.”

She shuffles papers on her desk and drops them loudly, just for affect, nearly drowning out his,

“I’m sorry.”

She waves it off as if he can see her. “Doesn’t make a difference. It’s done now.”

“Miss Parker-” he tries.

“Give up, Jarod. You’re not sorry enough to repent and I’ll never forgive you.”

“Repent? I’ve spent every day since I escaped repenting Miss Parker-”

“Not to me.”

She hadn’t meant to let it slip (or maybe she had) but it was said. Rather than be cautious, he says bluntly:

“I don’t feel I need to apologize for your life. You got yourself in that situation.”

“You’re the only one who can get me out,” she says in that tone that makes him feel like an object, like a key that will unlock a door. Not like a pretender, not like a human being. Like an object, and he hates material things.

“Then you admit you need me,” he tries to counter.

“I need you out of my life, yes,” she corrects.

Sydney enters the office and stands to the side. He knows she knows he’s there, and wonders why she doesn’t shoo him away.

“So thoughtful. Such considerate words,” he says bitterly, as if his pain will affect her.

“I’m not trying to spare your feelings.”

“Obviously.”

“Go away, Jarod,” she says, and for once he knows it’s what she wants. “Go away.” For once he knows she’s telling the truth.

**

She sits on the couch again, watching the fire dance across the box. It’s clean now; all the dust blown away, but still tired.

“Why do you do this to yourself?” she remembers he asked.

“Do what?” she remembers she answered.

“Smoke. Drink. Re-live dead memories.” She remembers he sat next to her and tried to make eye contact.

“It’s something to feel.” She remembers she looked away.

“Pain is a terrible thing to feel.” She remembers he lifted her chin, and gently touched her face.

“Not when you’ve never known anything else.” She remembers he almost cried, and she remembers all night he wouldn’t let her go.

Do you believe in angels? she asks the darkness.

The fire cracks in response and the vines whimper. The angel on the box tilts her head and cries dust.

**

This day is much like the last, the one before it and the first. One directional wind, green and coloured flowers. The large tree is off to the side that she remembers so well, now seeming only from her dreams. But she knew at one point in her life she sat under that tree, and that was not a dream. But the lines have been so blurred now she can’t recall the actual memory, just the nightmare.

She stands by the edge again, and the vines quiver and the hinges shudder and the angel weeps to see the sunshine, just behind the cloud.

She thinks she hears footsteps but doesn’t want to turn and look. She knows who they belong to, because only one person walks like that, even on grass, with dignity and respect yet also tired and drug forward. Heavy footsteps she knows so well and a voice rich with age and accent to accompany them.

She turns to look at him, not face him like a match, but really look at him, and his eyes are so kind and wide and full of support that she sinks slowly to her knees, never releasing her hold on the box.

He steps forward and with hidden effort kneels next to her and watches her fingers trace the carved vines and the face of the angel.

“What if she doesn’t fly, Syd?”

He covers her hand with his own and smiles at her. A smile that embodies knowledge and hope, a smile that could not lie.

“All angels fly, Miss Parker. Even the broken ones.”

And as he pulls back his hand her hand leaves too and the vines loosen on the box. The wind sweeps down into the shallow box and lifts the ashes over the side and down over the edge into the green valley and coloured flowers.

Sydney takes her hand again as the ashes vanish into the air, as they mold into wings and aid the angel’s flight.

“Maybe you’re right, Syd,” she says, and remembers sitting under the old tree as a child, on a blanket, never alone. She was never alone in her childhood as she is in her dreams.
“Maybe there isn’t anything to fear.”

He turns his head and is surprised to find no tears. Her eyes glisten but nothing falls if only because she won’t let it. He squeezes her hand to let her know it’s okay, but she closes her eyes and the potential tears vanish. He speaks again, and for the first time in her life, she knows he isn’t lying.

“She’ll still love you, Miss Parker,” he says under the wind; it carries his voice to her. “She’ll still love you if you let her go.”

+++

end









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