Chapter 4 - The Blue Box
The next morning, Jake was waiting outside Maple Ridge before the doors opened.
Ms. Alvarez met him in the office. She was in her early forties, with tired eyes and the kind of calm voice children trusted.
She looked at Jake’s prison-release identification and then at him.
“Ben has your eyes.”
Jake nodded. “His mother’s stubbornness.”
For the first time, Ms. Alvarez smiled.
Then she handed him a folder.
Inside were copies of attendance notes and lunch-account notices.
“His guardian has been contacted several times,” she said. “The phone is often disconnected.”
“Does Ben come to school hungry?”
“Sometimes.”
Jake’s jaw tightened.
“He told me Todd gets money for him.”
“I wouldn’t know the details.”
A bell rang in the hallway.
Ben appeared around the corner, saw Jake, and froze.
Then his face lit up.
“You came.”
“I said I would.”
Ben looked toward the office door.
“Uncle Todd says you’re not allowed near me.”
“Your uncle doesn’t get to invent laws.”
Ms. Alvarez gently interrupted. “You have five minutes before class.”
Ben pulled Jake toward a bench.
“You saw my note?”
“I saw it. What blue box?”
“The one Mom kept under her bed. After she died, Uncle Todd moved into our house. He put her stuff in the attic. I found the box.”
“What’s in it?”
“Your letters. All of them.”
Jake stopped breathing for a second.
“I wrote every week.”
“I know.”
“You read them?”
“Some.”
Jake looked away, ashamed of the things he might have written from prison. Regret. Anger. Hope. Promises he had no right to ask anyone to trust.
Ben reached into his backpack and pulled out a small brass key on a blue string.
“This was taped under the box.”
Jake stared at it.
“Do you know what it opens?”
Ben shook his head.
“There was an envelope too, but Uncle Todd came upstairs, so I put everything back.”
“What did the envelope say?”
Ben whispered, “For Jake, when he comes home.”
Jake’s chest hurt.
Before he could answer, a voice thundered down the hall.
“Benjamin Carter!”
Todd.
He marched into the office with a paper in one hand.
“I knew it,” he said. “I knew you’d come here.”
He shoved the paper toward Jake.
It was a court order.
TEMPORARY GUARDIANSHIP - TODD MERCER.
At the bottom, in bold type, was a handwritten restriction.
NO UNSUPERVISED CONTACT WITH JAKE CARTER.
Jake looked at the signature date.
It had been filed three days after Rachel died.
Then he saw the witness signature.
May you like
Rachel Carter.
His dead wife had supposedly signed it two days after her own funeral.
