She asked Sam, “Do you think he’d keep it in his filing cabinets?”
Sam looked wary. There were five wooden filing cabinets, all with heavy bar locks on them. “Can we find the keys in this mess?”
“He probably had them on him when they took him to the hospital.”
“Which means they’re in evidence.”
“And we don’t know anyone at the DA’s office who could help us because my husband apparently told them all to fuck off.” She thought of Kaylee Collins, and silently added, Maybe not all of them.
She asked Sam, “Dad was sure that you and I have never seen this picture before?”
“I told you this already. He said that he kept it to himself. That it captured the moment that he and Gamma fell in love.”
Charlie felt the poignancy of her father’s remark. His language had always been so annoyingly baroque that she had sometimes lost sight of the meaning. “He did love her,” she told Sam.
“I know,” she said. “I let myself forget that he lost her, too.”
Charlie looked out the window. She had cried enough to last the rest of her life.
Sam said, “I can’t leave without finding it.”
“He could’ve been making it up,” Charlie said. “You know how he loved to spin stories.”
“He wouldn’t lie about this.”
Charlie kept her mouth shut. She wasn’t so sure about that.
Ben asked, “Did you check the safe?” He was standing in the hall with a bunch of colored cables looped over his shoulders.
Charlie rubbed her eyes. “When did Dad get a safe?”
“When he figured out that you and Sam were reading everything he brought home.” He pushed away a pile of boxes with his foot, revealing a floor safe that came up to the middle of his thigh. “Do you know the combination?”
“I didn’t know he had a safe,” Charlie reminded him. “Why would I know the combination?”
Sam knelt down. She studied the dial. “It would be a set of numbers that are relevant to Dad.”
“What’s the price on a carton of Camels?”
“I’ve got an idea.” Sam spun the dial a few times. She stopped at the number two, then turned back to the number eight, then back to seventy-six.
Charlie’s birthday.
Sam tried the handle.
The safe did not open.
Charlie said, “Try your birthday.”
Sam spun the dial again, stopping at the correct numbers. She pulled on the handle. “Nope.”
“Gamma’s birthday,” Ben suggested.
Sam entered the numbers. No luck. She shook her head, as if she had figured out the obvious. “Rusty’s birthday.”
She worked the dial quickly, entering Rusty’s date of birth.
She tried the handle.
Again, nothing.
Sam looked at Ben. “Your birthday’s next.”
Charlie said, “Try 3-16-89.”
The day the Culpeppers had shown up at the kitchen door.
Sam let out a slow breath. She turned back around. She spun the dial right, then left, then right again. She rested her fingers on the handle. She looked up at Charlie. She tried the handle.
The safe opened.
Charlie knelt down behind Sam. The safe was packed tight, just like everything else in Rusty’s life. At first, all she smelled was musty old papers, but then there was something else, almost like a woman’s perfume.
Sam whispered, “I think that’s Mama’s soap.”
“Rose Petal Delight,” Charlie recalled. Gamma bought it at the drug store. Her only vanity.
“I think it’s coming from these.” Sam had to use both hands to extricate a stack of envelopes wedged against the top.
They were tied with a red ribbon.
Sam smelled the letters. She closed her eyes like a cat purring in the sun. Her smile was beatific. “It’s her.”
Charlie smelled the envelopes, too. She nodded. The scent was faint, but it was Gamma’s.
“Look.” Sam pointed to the address, which was made out to Rusty, care of the University of Georgia. “This is her handwriting.” Sam ran her fingers over the perfect, Palmer Method print of their mother. “The postmark is from Batavia, Illinois. That’s where Fermilab is. These must be love letters.”
“Oh,” Ben said. “Yeah, you maybe don’t want to read those.”
“Whyever not?”
“Because they were really in love.”
Sam was beaming. “But, that’s wonderful.”
“Is it?” Ben’s voice went up to a register he probably hadn’t used since puberty. “I mean, do you really wanna read a pack of scented letters your dad kept tied with a red string that are from way back when he and your mom just met and were probably—” He fucked his fingers into his open fist. “Think about it. Your dad could be a real horn dog.”
Charlie felt queasy.
Sam said, “Let’s put aside that decision for the moment.” She placed the letters on top of the safe. She wedged her hand back inside and slid out a postcard.
Sam showed Charlie the aerial photo of the Johnson Space Center.
Gamma had worked with NASA before going to Fermilab.
Sam turned over the card. Again, their mother’s neat handwriting was unmistakable.
Charlie read aloud the message to Rusty, “‘If you can see things out of whack, then you can see how things can be in whack.’ —Dr. Seuss.”
Sam gave Charlie a meaningful look, as if their mother was offering marital advice from the grave.
Charlie said, “Obviously, she was trying to communicate with Dad on his level.”
“Obviously.” Sam was smiling the same way she had on Christmas mornings. She had always opened presents so maddeningly slow, commenting on the wrapping paper, the amount of tape used, the size and shape of the box while Charlie tore through her gifts like a Chihuahua on methamphetamine.
Sam said, “We need to go through all of this very carefully.” She made herself more comfortable on the floor. “I hope that we’ll find the photo today, but if not, or I guess either way, do you mind if I take all of this back to New York? Some of it is very precious. I can catalog everything and—”
“It’s fine,” Charlie said, because she knew that Gamma and Sam had always spoken in their own, impenetrable language.
And also that she would never make a catalog.
“I’ll bring them back,” Sam promised. “You can meet me in Atlanta, or I can come up here.”
Charlie nodded. She liked the idea of seeing her sister again.
“I can’t believe Daddy kept this.” Sam was holding one of her track and field ribbons. “He must have had it in his office. Otherwise, it would’ve burned in the fire. And—oh my goodness.” She had found a pile of old school assignments. “Your paper on transcendentalism. Charlie, do you remember Gamma got into a two-hour argument with your teacher? She was so livid that he’d marginalized Louisa May Alcott. Oh—and look, my old report card. He was supposed to sign it.”
Ben whistled for Charlie’s attention. He was holding up a blank sheet of paper. “Your dad kept my drawing of a rabbit in a snowstorm.”
Charlie grinned.
“Oh, wait.” He took a pen off the desk and drew a black dot in the center of the page. “It’s a polar bear’s asshole.”