Like Son by Felicia Luna Lemus Read Free Book Online

space—the air stiff and totally silent, heavy wood surrounding me in close proximity at every angle—was truly like being entombed. Happy Belated Birthday to me. Thanks, Dad.
    I unlocked the metal box. Hinged lid lifted, there it was, my birthday gift.
    A bundle of letters.
    Fading ink and yellowed paper, some of the letters were accompanied by stamped envelopes postmarked Orange, California or New Haven, Connecticut. Others, scratched out on scrap pieces of paper, appeared never to have been mailed. The handwriting was familiar (my father’s, my mother’s); the words and sentiments were not. Francisco, sweet love, meet me at the plaza fountain tonight, please . And: Darling Paco, you are my everything . Then: You have made me the happiest woman in the world . Another, this one from my father: It’s true what you say—Paquita does have my eyes. But she has her mother’s brilliance … Letter after letter offered up blissfully-in-love compliments and hopes for a long life together from two people I’d known to share only sadness, resentment, and anger.
    Numb, I decided to approach the letters as artifacts of a sort. I played archivist and examined primary-document evidence of the long-extinct society I’d stumbled upon:
    A coffee stain here and there. Lipstick kiss signatures. One letter smelled of sandalwood and was marked with a large perfumed oil spot that bled out and blurred its accompanying ink message. Many were signed with hearts and curlycue-headed squiggle happy faces like the ones my kindergarten teacher used to draw on handouts I’d completed with particular excellence. One envelope contained a clipping of long black hair braided and tied with green ribbon at either end. Blue ink. Black ink. Some written in red fountain pen. Near the middle of the stack I found two movie stubs for Five Easy Pieces —7:30 p.m., November 2, 1970, Orange Theatre (the plaza theater that had been converted into an evangelical church for as long as I could remember)—paper clipped to the top corner of an envelope addressed to a plump pink heart and the letter F .
    None of the letters were dated past 1974. This was little surprise—my parents officially split in 1975. By 1974, I imagined only threats and legal documents were exchanged. I half-wished my dad had included those papers in the time capsule. Without them I felt like I was floating in some alternate universe. I’m not sure how many hours passed in that room, but a security guard knocked at one point.
    “Everything all right in there?”
    Bastard. No, everything was not all right. The foundation of everything I knew was crumbling. Air particles were separating and falling heavy all around me.
    “Everything’s fine. Thank you.”
    I listened to the security guard’s heavy shoes retreat down the long linoleum hallway. And instantly I wondered why I’d sent him away. I didn’t want to be alone with the letters. What was I supposed to do now that I’d seen them? What had my father intended? Why had he left them to me? I wished the box had been full of money instead. Or jewelry. Diamonds. Something I could pawn. Not only did this daydream fill me with greedy shame, it was also just plain unrealistic. Because even though my father had worked his way up to a supervisor position at the medical research lab before he got sick, he’d never had any extra dough to stash. There were living expenses, a mortgage on his house, and, until I was eighteen, my mother had sucked him dry of any remaining money by demanding he pay child support. It was so fucking ridiculous—she was beyond rich, she’d never needed his money, she wouldn’t let him see me, but she made sure he paid child support. “It’s the principle of the matter,” she’d said. Bullshit. It was vendetta.
    My darling Francisco, I will love you forever.
    How was it that my mother had written these words? My whole life she’d been cold and distant at best, outright vicious most of the time. Had I somehow