Chapter 7 - Packing Up
The forty-fifth day arrived with a cold autumn rain that tapped against the bedroom windows like a steady drumbeat.
I stood on the front porch of the Maple Street duplex, watching a rented box truck idle in the driveway with its hazard lights flashing in the gray mist. The large side door of the truck was wide open, revealing a stack of cardboard boxes labeled in thick black marker with words like KITCHEN, BOOKS, and KYLE'S TOYS.
Rachel didn't look at me as she carried a plastic storage bin out the front door, her jacket pulled tight against the damp chill. Her hair was tucked under a knit beanie, and her face was pale and exhausted. Behind her, Kyle dragged a heavy duffel bag across the concrete porch, his face scowling as the bottom of the bag snagged on a crack in the pavement.
"Careful with that, you little brat," Rachel snapped at her son, though the bite in her voice lacked its old theatrical fury; it just sounded tired.
I didn't offer to help, and she didn't ask. We had reached a strange, silent armistice three days prior when she finally dropped the keys off in my mailbox along with a brief, unsigned note stating that they were moving into a two-bedroom apartment near the interstate. She hadn't signed the lease. She hadn't apologized, either. But as she loaded the last of her belongings into the back of that truck, she knew the game was finished.
As Kyle heaved his game console box into the back of the truck, I noticed something small and purple sitting on the dashboard of her sedan parked right behind it.
I walked slowly across the wet gravel, stepping up to the passenger-side window of her car. The doors were unlocked. I pulled the handle, opened the door, and reached across the passenger seat. There, resting right on the center console, was Ellie's Kindle Kids edition, its screen smudged with fingerprints, the battery completely dead.
I picked it up, closed the car door softly, and turned around just as Rachel walked back down the walkway to lock the front door of the duplex for the very last time.
She stopped at the foot of the steps, seeing the purple device in my hand. For a split second, her jaw tightened as if she wanted to make one final sarcastic remark about my pettiness. But she looked at the empty porch, the bare windows of the house where she had lived rent-free for half a decade, and the heavy rain falling on the street, and all the fight simply leaked out of her.
"Take it," she muttered, turning her back and walking toward the driver's seat. "He barely played with it anyway. The battery dies too fast."
"Goodbye, Rachel," I said.
She didn't answer. She climbed into her car, slammed the door, and started the engine. A few moments later, the box truck ground its gears, and both vehicles pulled slowly down the wet suburban street, turning the corner until the red taillights faded into the gray curtain of the rain.
I stood there on the empty porch for a long time, holding the dusty Kindle in my palm. Maple Street was quiet—so quiet I could hear the sound of the rain dripping from the gutter overhead. It was my house now. Not just legally on a piece of paper in a municipal vault, but practically, responsibly, and truly mine.
When I got back to my own house, Ellie was sitting at the kitchen table drawing pictures with colored pencils. The smell of cinnamon toast filled the warm air, and the radio was playing soft instrumental music in the background.
She looked up as I walked in, her eyes landing immediately on the purple plastic object in my hand.
"Daddy?" she asked, dropping her green pencil onto the paper.
I walked over, wiped the screen clean with my sleeve, and plugged it into the charger on the kitchen island. Within seconds, the screen lit up with the glowing tree logo, booting back to life.
I set it down gently right in front of her. "It came back home, bug. Battery was dead, but the stories are all still inside."
Ellie’s face broke open into that pure, brilliant smile I had missed for two months. She pulled the Kindle into her arms, hugging it tight against her orange fox dress just like she had on her birthday.
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"Can we read chapter three together tonight?" she whispered, looking up at me with absolute, unclouded trust in her eyes.
"Every single word," I said, pulling out the chair beside her and sitting down where I belonged.
