Post by SeekerWing on Sept 3, 2012 12:09:50 GMT -8
((Okay, so, I know this has absolutely nothing to do with the site, but... I'm pretty proud of this, and wanted to share. So here you are - the Brown Box.))
Witney Dunovan. They hear her name and all they think is “her poor father”, or “a life cut short.” Nobody stops to think why. Nobody wonders what could have brought the early demise of such a young and carefree girl. These people obviously don’t know Witney like I do.
The sign had read “Witney Dunovan – Born May 18th, 1994, Died March 22nd, 2010. She will be mourned.” That’s it – “She will be mourned.” I think she deserved something a bit more – perhaps a “May your soul find rest”, or “Might you find refuge in the heavens,” but… that’s it. “She will be mourned.”
You’ll have to excuse me though; I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Janice Groven. I’m the reason she died.
Witney wasn’t an ordinary girl – but you’d probably already guessed as much. She grew up without a mother. She didn’t have any living siblings. No grandparents to speak of, or Aunts or Uncles. Her entire life, it was just her and her father; no more, no less. It was a lonely existence, but she had ways of coping.
Every day she’d go home and climb up into her tree house, the most private refuge she had, and write a letter to her mother. Of course, there was no way to address these letters; you can’t just ask a post man to deliver a letter on Heaven Boulevard. So she would put these letters away in a wooden chest. There was no special embellishment on this chest. No fancy metal rungs, no polish or stain – not even any paint. It was nothing more than a brown box, hidden away up in her tree house. To Witney, however, this box locked away a private correspondence between her and a mother she’d never met.
The key to this chest I now keep, stowed away in my pocket, tucking in with that same leather string it’d always been on, safe from those who would exploit her little secrets. I’ve always felt as though there was a distinctive need to protect this key, and I’m reminded of the warm shaped metal every time I walk past her house, or her seat in school, or the funeral home that had so coldly addressed her death. The key seems to grow heavy in my pocket, as though reminding me of her secrets and how I was involved in her death. People always try to tell me, “It’s a suicide; it’s not your fault. You can’t hold yourself responsible!” Oh, if only they knew.
In the beginning, I had felt as though it would be an extreme violation of my deceased friend’s privacy to open that box. A private correspondence between a girl and her ghostly mother is the kind of thing that I’ve always believed should be left alone. In fact, I still believe so – even after I’ve been through her brown box; even after I’ve infiltrated that privacy in a way that would probably have made her roll in her grave. Had it not been her who had given me the key, I may never have thought about that box. However, it was the mystery and the temptation of this Pandora’s Box, not the gift alone, which eventually led me to get to know Witney better than I had ever wanted to.
I remember clearly that first day, going up into her tree house, her little hiding spot, and sitting in front of that box for hours. I remember sitting there for hours, staring at that box, afraid to touch it, afraid of what I would lose, as silent as though speaking would confirm, solidly, the fact that she was indeed dead. It took the sound of my stomach growling for me to realize just how long I’d been there.
“Lead me not into temptation Lord – I think I’ve found it.” It was the first time I’d spoken, a short jest, as though that would alleviate the tension I felt in the deepest core of my being. I felt as though I was in the wrong, out of place, but that short jest did indeed release some of the tension – just enough to make the situation bearable.
I didn’t open the box that day. I felt like it was a ritual item, a kind of mourning period for me, to go and sit in front of that box. It took me a long time to build up the courage to put the key in the lock, to turn it, and to pop the lid open. I really don’t know what I expected to see, but somehow I was slightly disappointed when faced with the small mountain of papers, organized carefully in different sections of the box – each section separated by nothing more than a bookmark, as though it were simply marking a chapter.
It wasn’t this organization, however, that caught my attention. It was an old shoebox that stood on its side in the back right corner of this wood chest. A size eight child’s tennis shoe, if I recall correctly. However, it was not shoes in this box – again, I’m not entirely sure why this fact had surprised me at the time. Apparently I was expecting something really random to come from Witney’s box mom – and what I found had indeed seemed random at the time. Opening the box, I found exactly eighty two pencil stubs, worn down as short as they could possibly go, mingled amongst a couple of mangled pipe cleaner constructions, a tiny vial of salt water, in which some of the salt had settled to the bottom, a marble that had been split into two pieces, a chunk of hair, a golden ring that had obviously been polished way too many times, and a small Ziploc baggie of dirt. I would learn later that this was far from what was supposed to be the full content of the shoebox.
I didn’t read any of the letters that day, though. Simply getting into the box had taken a bit of an emotional toll on me. It had kind of forced me to realize that Witney wasn’t coming back. I don’t think there’s any way I could have read those letters any sooner than I wound up doing so, but I still feel as though I should have done it sooner, gotten it over with.
Her father didn’t mind that I was coming up inside of the tree house every day – in fact, he was distant. He’d always been distant, but by this point I was seriously worried for the man’s health. I had made a habit, after a while, of making sure that I spoke to him before heading back to the tree house, to make sure that he hadn’t gone and done something foolish. It would be a mostly silent exchange; a nod of the head, a “Good day,” or a “Hang in there,” before we would part ways again. It wasn’t anything significant, but I feel as though simply by allowing that short social interaction, I was helping to keep him connected to the world.
And so the days passed. School was out by the time I ever got to read the letters. Many of the first ones were very mundane and simple, something along the lines of “Dear Mom, I love you.” Usually accompanying these short snippets of communication was a picture of some sort, a first grader’s line art ever cute and almost always failing to resemble any real object unless a person was to look at it very objectively. However, Witney grew up fast, and it wasn’t long before she was showing a slightly higher thought process. Of course, I only found this out after the first year and a half of letters that usually followed the same format as the first.
“Mom, was Dad ever happy? Can you please come back to make Dad happy again? He told me you weren’t coming home for a long time, and that makes me sad, too. I think that if you came back, we could all be happy together. Love, Witney.”
It was the curly, showy handwriting of a girl who was just learning her cursive and wanted to show off her skills in her fancy adult writing, indicating that she was probably in about third or fourth grade at the time. I couldn’t help but wonder when she would find out that her mother wasn’t ever going to write a letter back. She’d asked several times in the past, but still maintained the simple hope that a young child holds for such things – a hope rather similar to a belief in Santa Claus. However, when she did find out, it broke my heart to read it; I realized that, by this point, I was seeing the little Witney as she lived her life, totally oblivious to everything around her. The image of this child dealing with the death of her mother… Well, I’m sure you get the picture.
“Mom, I’m sorry I haven’t written in so long – though I guess you’re never going to read it anyway. Don’t worry, Dad didn’t tell me anything until after I’d already figured out what was going on. It’s my fault you’re gone, isn’t it? If I wasn’t here, you would still be around, and maybe Dad would be happy. I’m sorry I’ve caused so much trouble. Witney.” It was short and to the point, but the tear stains on the page wrote more than the shaky handwriting and the forced words ever would.
Her mother had died giving birth to her – I knew this, but I’d never thought of what kind of effect it would have on her. Why would she blame herself for that? I had to stop reading though; I’d gone through a lot that day, and had been sitting up in that tree house for three and half hours, easily – and I was admittedly a bit too choked up to keep going. I had noticed that that section of letters ended early – the next section was her fifth grade year, though I hadn’t yet figured out the pattern at the time. I wasn’t quite sure anymore why I was reading these, or why she had given me the key to the box. Did she want me to know her better, or was there some hidden message to all of this? I didn’t understand her motives.
The next day was her birthday. I brought her dad a cupcake, though I felt terribly awkward giving it to him. I was afraid I’d hurt him more than I would help. Nevertheless, he was… grateful. I really hoped that he didn’t mind my company. I was starting to spend a bit of time in the house before I went up to the tree house. Since school was out, I had all day to go in, if I wanted. Of course, the mystery of the box was simply too much to keep me away for long – my parents, however, were starting to get concerned. They wanted me to let it go, to move on and forget about Witney, her Dad, and her box. I couldn’t do that, though. Not now.
I went back up to the tree house that day, and was able to pick up where I’d left off. Witney hadn’t written to her mother for about three months – she’d started dating the letters – and I had started reading at about the section she’d written in the fifth grade. She started on a much merrier note this time, almost forgetting that she had ever written in tears, ever felt blame for her mother’s death. There was, though, a slightly bitter note in some of her words – and every once in a while there was a particularly bitter one.
“Ma, I don’t know why these people keep me around. I’m not good for anything and all I manage to do is make Dad sad again. It’s like he sees me and thinks of you. Now, most kids might not mind all that much, but I don’t want to make Dad feel depressed every time he glances in my direction. I need to spend as much time away from the house as possible. I’ve asked if he’d put me in a public school, but he said that he won’t do it until next year. Isn’t that a long time to wait? Maybe I should go find a different place to be for a while. I think Dad would be happier if I weren’t here. Maybe he’d stop thinking about you and getting sad again. Ma, I don’t know if you can see these, but I just want to let you know that I love you, and I probably won’t be writing much for a little while. Your Sadness Bringing Daughter, Witney.”
I guess, on the bright side, you could note that she was starting to personalize her writing a bit more. Witney, however, had been true to her word – she had, indeed, not written for a while – if three days could be considered a while in comparison to the three months that were seen earlier.
That note was the highlight of her fifth grade year. There was little explanation for what had happened, and little to fill in the blanks. I didn’t want to ask her dad about it, though, and the merriness of the following letters seemed strange in contrast. However, I did learn something about the contents of the box in the letters of her fifth grade year. Every one of these pencil stubs was supposed to have been worn out writing the very letters that I was reading now; the pipe cleaner constructions were from when she was younger – though even she didn’t know what they had been – and the ring had been her mother’s wedding ring, which her father had given to Witney to keep.
Then starts middle school; her sixth grade year. I was honestly much more interested at this point; this was the year we’d met. We’d hit it off pretty much immediately. Of course, I’d never known much about her; we were friends, but we didn’t know each other’s backgrounds and never really thought to ask. It worked out.
“Ma, I finally found a friend. Apparently, it’s not normal to not have a friend. I hadn’t known that, but I guess it’s okay, because I have a friend now. At least, I think she’s a friend. I guess you would know, wouldn’t you? I mean, I assume you’ve had a friend before, right? Her name is Janice, and she’s the only person at school who will talk to me. I guess the others think I’m weird – or do I make them sad, too? That wouldn’t make much sense, would it? I mean, I never did anything to them, that I know of, so I guess that’s a pretty dumb idea. Still, at least Jay is willing to talk to me. She’s fun, and I’m really glad I was late. If I weren’t, I probably wouldn’t have sat next to her. Witney.”
There. I was mentioned! I had almost felt accomplished, but then I had reread the letter. Never had a friend before? I was, by this point, starting to put the pieces together. She felt responsible for her mother’s death, had grown up believing that it was entirely her fault that her father was depressed, and had nobody except a nonresponsive mother to talk to about it. Even when she did finally have somebody to talk to, there were so many other people that refused to talk to her. I had been important to her. I sat there in shock for a good while after this realization, continuing to read but not really interpreting much of what I read, a huge lump forming in my throat. I could already tell that there was, indeed, a point in her giving me that key, and I was afraid that it wouldn’t be a good one.
I came up a lot in her letters after that. It was almost obsessive, really. However, I kind of shrugged it off. I had almost felt like Witney was sitting in the room with me then, as I read on through middle school. I had been her only friend, and I’d helped her forget about all of the troubles in her life – even if only long enough to talk to her mother. In her eighth grade year, though, things were starting to trouble her again.
“Ma… I was wondering, do you ever feel lonely up there? Do you watch Dad and me, and wonder why you couldn’t stay down here with us? I’m certain we would make a great family. Just you, me, and dad – that’s all we’d need. I’ve actually been thinking a lot lately. I’ve wondered what it would be like, if I were to join you. Jay’s been busy a lot lately, and that’s left me pretty much alone. She’s gotten a boyfriend, so I guess I should be happy for her, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s a healthy relationship. She always looks like she’s forcing it, and he’s a little bit pushy about who she hangs out with. I guess I didn’t make it on the list; he throws a bit of a hissy fit every time the three of us are in the same room together. I want to help, but I don’t think she wants it. I want to keep him away from her – he’s hurting her, Ma, and she doesn’t seem to understand. I want to help. Why won’t she let me help her?”
She didn’t even sign that one. I was already starting to see where she was going, and I had to admit – I had cut her out, a lot. I had cut her out of my life, and I didn’t even realize what she’d been trying to say. She’d been right, too, and I had failed to acknowledge that. I’d thought she was just being clingy and pathetic. I hadn’t wanted to deal with her anymore after that. How selfish I had been. I was beginning to see just why she had given me the box. She wanted me to know just what had happened. It was cruel, the way she’d done it, but it was the only way she had – I’d stopped listening to her. Every letter after that was similar, each one just a bit more hurt. She was falling down a pit, and I hadn’t seen it. I’d been her only friend, and I’d turned my back on her. How could I have been so selfish? I couldn’t stop reading, even though it hurt. So many letters expressing her pain, her frustration, before finally, she had just… Given up.
I had reached the final letter. It was addressed to her mother, but it spoke to me, as well – as though she knew that I would read them all. As though she knew that I’d reach that final letter. I read it carefully, drinking in those last few words. My hand was shaky as I looked at the tear stained paper, the shaky handwriting, and the random scrawls that scattered across the bloodstained page as though she were shuddering. Had it been her last act, to put the paper in that box? Had it been the last thing she’d done, to write this final letter to her mother? Was I really one of the last people she’d thought of before she’d died?
My tears were dry by now, my throat sore. I hadn’t looked before, but now I could tell – there was blood soaked into the wood of the tree house. It had been cleaned from every surface – every surface except for this letter. It occurred to me that I still didn’t know the point of some of the items of the shoebox, but that didn’t matter. Not now. I was about to read Witney’s final words.
“Ma, Jay… I wanted to talk to both of you this time. I just wanted to say, that I can’t handle being the extra one anymore. I can’t be the kid that makes her Daddy cry every time he sees her. I can’t be the kid that chased away her best friend just by giving her a warning. I can’t be the kid that nobody wants. Ma, I’m going to join you soon. I’m going to join you and talk to you for the first time. Ma, please don’t abandon me to live by myself in heaven. I need you to love me. I need you Ma, more than any normal kid could ever begin to understand. And Jay, I just wanted to let you know, that I don’t hate you. I know that you didn’t understand, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was such a nuisance. I’m sorry that you had to tune me out of your life. Jay, please take care of Daddy. I’m not going to be here anymore, and I want to make sure he’s safe. And Jay? You can keep the box. Burn the letters, let them die out. I’m going to be gone. I don’t need them anymore. Maybe you can start writing to somebody and putting your letters in the box. But I’m joining Ma tonight. Love, Witney Nicole Dunovan.”
That was the last time I had ever seen her signature. I had done as she asked, burning the letters, scattering them into the winds – however, I kept a pinch of the ashes of that fire inside of the salt water vial. I kept that vial, with the ashes mixed into the salty water. I don’t know why I had chosen it, out of everything – but when I had first opened it, it had smelled of the ocean. Perhaps that’s why she’d kept it – she’d spoken of a trip to the ocean in her letters. I kept the brown box, and now I’m writing my own letters – letters to Witney. She will always be my best friend, even if our friendship is only in the spirit now. To this day, I still go to speak with her father regularly – and if I can’t go to visit, I make sure to give him a call. He’s become a friend to me. It was a friendship that I felt nobody else would ever truly understand.
My name is Janice Danielle Groven – and this is Witney’s box.
