Six Left Behind Daughters and One Returned White Box Fifteen Years Later

“I have never been to Chicago,” I said.

He pulled a black leather notebook from his pocket, flipped it open, and looked at a small white slip of paper tucked inside.

“She said you met her at the state line,” Harry said. “Near the toll plaza.”

“I was working sixty hours a week at the lumber yard,” I said. “I didn’t have the gas money to drive to the state line.”

Harry looked back out the window. “She insisted on coming to this wedding. She said she wanted to show you she succeeded. She wanted me to see the man who supposedly ruined her youth, so I could see what she escaped.”

By noon, I had retreated to the small utility room behind the sanctuary, where the spare folding tables and old metal chairs were stacked against the wood paneling. The loud hum of the water heater in the corner was the only sound in the narrow space, vibrating through the linoleum floor.

I took out my small pocket calendar and a blue ballpoint pen, leaning against the cold metal edge of an unused sink.

Two thousand dollars a month.

Twelve months a year.

For fifteen years.

The total came to three hundred and sixty thousand dollars.

During those years, the girls had worn shoes with thin soles, and I had worked double shifts at the lumber yard to pay for Adele’s dental bills and Lucille’s throat specialist. We had eaten cabbage and potatoes for three weeks straight during the winter the furnace broke, and the grocery bill was never more than thirty-four dollars a week.

Maya had kept every dollar of Harry’s money for herself while telling him that I refused it. She had lived in a lakefront home in Chicago while her youngest daughter, Shannon, wore hand-me-down sweaters that were three sizes too large and wondered if she was even wanted.

“The whole story is worse,” I whispered to the empty room.

The heavy wooden door clicked open, and Jerome stepped inside carrying a box of white taper candles for the altar. He looked at my face, then set the cardboard box down on a nearby folding chair.

“Robert?” Jerome asked, his short, reassuring sentence landing softly in the quiet room.