I pulled free.
Her reaction frightened me more than the package itself.
“What do you know about this?”
“Nothing that matters now.”
“It mattered to Dad.”
“Annie.”
“Somebody in Hawaii mailed him something the size of a washing machine three days before he died.”
“It’s not a washing machine.”
I stared at her.
“Then you do know.”
Mom closed her eyes.
I found a pair of scissors.
“Don’t.”
I cut through the tape.
“Annie, please.”
I opened the cardboard flaps and pulled away layers of packing paper.
Blue paint.
Wood.
For a second, I couldn’t understand what I was seeing.
Then I removed the remaining packing material.
It was a chair.
An old wooden kitchen chair painted blue.
The paint had worn away around the edges. One leg had been repaired with a darker piece of wood, and a black mark scarred the bottom rung as if something hot had once touched it.
