Page 33 of Never After Us
As I walk out of his office, the receptionist gives me a tiny smile.I nod back, though it feels clumsy, foreign.
Outside, the sky is a muted gray, the mist beginning again.
Seattle breathes around me, a whole city exhaling, alive in ways I still don’t know how to match.I don’t know how to do any of this on my own without panicking or worrying I’ll lose everything I’ve scraped together these past few years.Sure, it looks like I have my shit together—but some days, it feels like I’m right back at square one.
When does it get better?
ChapterTen
Mara
There are a few things I hate in life, and unpacking ranks right up there with tax season, humidity, and my own questionable decision-making skills.
But unpacking things that don’t even belong to me?That’s torture with a bow on top.
I should leave it for another day—maybe another decade.Honestly, who did I offend in a past life?Did I steal candy from a saint?Run over a nun?Because whatever karma I’m paying off, it’s staring at me in the form of boxes that feel less like cardboard and more like emotional landmines.
I should just leave them.Seal them.Pretend they don’t exist.
Is there a legal way to start a controlled fire inside a penthouse?Because I could absolutely burn the whole stack, tell the lawyer it was a tragic electrical incident, and claim I did my absolute best to complete whatever apparently sacred homework Aunt Lina assigned me from beyond the grave.
Go through the boxes, Mara.They’re the key to leaving before the year-mark.
Sure.Because nothing says “closure” like digging through someone else’s memories while trying not to fall apart in front of my eight-year-old.
As if a few boxes will magically explain why my aunt picked me of all people to inherit her life and whatever else she wants me to learn.
A key, the lawyer said.I don’t want a damn key.Give my family everything and let me fade into the background with dignity and minimal paperwork.I don’t want any of this lavish stuff.I don’t want responsibility wrapped in cardboard.And I especially don’t want nostalgia bleeding through packing tape like some poetic punishment.
No.
At least I’ll do this alone.Mila is finally asleep in her room.She insisted she wanted to help me unpack, and I pulled out the old allergy excuse.
“Dust mites are not your friends.You hate allergy medicine.”
She hates how drowsy it makes her, and shockingly—I won the argument.Look at me.Parenting like a functional adult ...maybe.
I drag one of the smaller boxes onto the bed.
The first is harmless: clothes wrapped in tissue, a crocheted baby blanket that smells faintly like jasmine and time.I fold it with more care than anyone asked for, narrating the inventory to myself like I’m curating a museum exhibit titledProcrastination in Motion.
The second box is labeledMiscellaneous.
Which is universal code for:
I panicked and shoved everything inside one box.
I stare at it for a moment, then pry the tape open because maybe—just maybe—this is the box that gets to join the trash bags I brought with me.
Inside, I find more fabric.Two photo albums filled with baby pictures of me—some I’ve never seen.Three stacks of old bills rubber-banded together.A wallet.A small wooden frame with a faded picture of a teenage boy whose smile looks both hopeful and unsure.He reminds me slightly of Mila.
And then, at the very bottom—wedged under a couple of journals—I see it.
A shoebox.
Beat-up.Yellowed.The cardboard is soft along the edges like it’s been handled too many times.
I pull it out carefully, the way you lift something fragile that might crumble if you’re too confident.The lid gives way with a quiet release, and inside I find letters bound together with a thin piece of twine knotted so tightly it looks like it’s been holding its breath for years.
