The Box

Caitlin wandered around the apartment, making mental notes about where to store things as they were brought in by the movers. They were piling the boxes in the rooms that they were designated for, but there were boxed that had no real single home, so she decided to have them put in the closet in the entryway. She opened the closet, furrowing her brow as she noticed a small box that didn't match the ones that she had used to pack up her old place. She pulled the box out and slid it up onto the top shelf so that she wouldn't get it confused later. She told the movers to put the unlabeled boxes in there and went back to making notes of things that she was going to need to get. She hadn't ever lived on her own before, this was her first apartment.

She was twenty-three and was widowed already, she had married right out of high school to her boyfriend of three years. They were so in love, and things were so perfect, he had joined the Air Force and they spent a few years getting transferred from city to city. This made school for Caitlin nearly impossible, but she managed to get her degree in Accounting and had quite a successful business now. She had clients from each of the areas that they had lived with.

David had most recently been stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Nevada and they loved the area. They lived about half an hour from the heart of the city, which was just far enough out to not have to worry about the high crime rate, but close enough that they could enjoy the city as well. Caitlin had found a small office in the city that was low cost and had set up a small practice, doing a lot of Accounting for several restaurants and small businesses. She found out quickly that it was a transient city, that what you knew one day could change over night.

They had a nice house on base and had been settled in nicely, enjoying their time together in the warm climate. They spent their evenings together at the pool with their neighbors, or going to different free shows in the city. They weren't gamblers, so the casinos really didn't hold a whole lot of appeal, but they did discover several shows at the various tourist trap, strip casinos that they enjoyed. On one particular evening, David had called and told her that he was going out on a night training flight and would be home around midnight, but she should go ahead and go to the concert they had acquired tickets for earlier that week.

Caitlin called Ciara, her best friend on base, she also happened to be the wife of another officer who was on the night training and asked if she wished to go to the concert with her. Ciara jumped at the chance, not having had much chance to explore the city since her husband, Tony was working a job off base after his day duties were over so that she didn't have to work. They made the arrangements to leave in half an hour and hung up. Caitlin got ready and was waiting outside when Ciara came up the walk. They climbed into Caitlin's car and headed off to the Thomas and Mack Center a few miles away. Caitlin pointed out a few different casinos and different places that she thought Tony and Ciara might enjoy visiting if they got a chance.

When they got there, they were surprised to find the lot nearly bare, even though it was only about twenty minutes before the opening act was on stage. Caitlin parked and they headed to the entrance after triple checking to make sure the car was securely locked. They were led in and shown to their seats. The venue was in a smaller, more intimate, lounge type area, rather than the main staging area, which explained why the lot was so empty. They ordered their drinks, a simple ice water for each of them, and chatted a bit until the lights went down.

They enjoyed the next few hours, listening to several local bands that they had never heard of and probably wouldn't remember the next day. After the final performer had left the stage, Caitlin and Ciara headed back to the car, deciding that they should check their voice mail before going anywhere, since both of them had gotten calls a few minutes apart when they were listening to a singer. They were listening to the same messages, but they didn't know that right at that moment. The message was simple, but it told them that something was wrong. It stated simply that they needed to report to the base hospital immediately for a briefing in regards to an accident during their husband's training flight.

They looked at each other after hanging up their phones, instantly knowing the other had gotten the same message. Caitlin picked through the traffic and made her way back to base in record time and went straight to the hospital unit, parking in front, not caring if she got ticketed for not having the proper tag in the window. Once inside, the women were informed that their husbands had been killed instantly when the fuel tank had exploded on the plane that they were training on.

Caitlin shook her head, bringing herself back to reality and the process of getting settled into her new apartment. Ciara would be moving in later on in the week and she wanted to have her things unpacked and out of the way so that she could easily unpack and not get boxes confused with one another.

Once the movers had gone, Caitlin set about unpacking the essentials that she needed in order to get through the rest of the unpacking process. It had been three months since the accident and Caitlin was doing really well now. The Air Force had told her that she could live on base as long as she needed, she had access to all of their services and even made use of the counseling service. The first month had been rough, but she was receiving a pension from David's service that was more than sufficient to cover all of her expenses as well as leaving enough to stash away a nice nest egg. She had gone back to her practice almost immediately, she was the only employee and she couldn't really leave her clients up in the air.

Ciara had spent two of the last three months in and out of the hospital, on and off of suicide watch. The Air Force had finally told her that there was nothing more they could do to help her, that she had to seek some outside help and she did. She spent last month under the care of a great psychologist who suggested that she move off base, so she talked to Caitlin about it, asked if they wanted to share an apartment. Neither of them wanted to leave the city, especially Caitlin, her business was doing so well now.

Caitlin moved about the apartment, taking care of many of the boxes, getting furniture situated and setting up a nice looking home. She went to the entryway to find something that she knew was in one of the boxes there and spied the box she had put up on the top shelf earlier, instantly forgetting what she was looking for.

She pulled the box down, heading into the living room with it. She placed it on the table in front of her, lifting the lid off to inspect the contents. She pulled out an old leather bound journal, a folded flag much like the one that was currently resting on the shelf behind her with the same gold tag on the triangle shaped case, several coins and a large stack of letters, the top most of the stack still sealed. As she lifted the stack from the box, a thin gold chain fell from between two of the letters, slithering onto the table, one end still trapped between the letters.

Caitlin scattered the items across the table, her fingers lingering over the gold chain, tracing the delicate filigree as she pulled it from between the letter, a small pendant coming free of the ribbon it was snagged on. Caitlin looked at the pendant, it had to be at least fifty years old, the setting was slightly tarnished, but the diamonds and ruby sparkled bright in the light. She laid it aside and picked up the stack of letters, they were all addressed to a man named Jack Cole. Caitlin flipped through them, glancing at the postmarks, gasping at the date. Each of them was canceled between 1949 and 1953, a little more than fifty years ago, and they were finally starting to yellow and fade.

She sat the letters aside, picking up the journal this time, fingertips tracing over the leather as she sighed. She opened the cover and smiled as she saw the same name on the inside as was on the letters, Property of Jack Cole. She flipped through the yellowing pages a bit, glancing at the dates. The entries were all from the same year, 1953, hand written accounts of the day as it had happened, each and every day of the year. She tried hard not to get caught up in the entries and closed the book up, setting it aside with the other items. This left one item that she hadn't looked at yet, the hardest one for her to look at.

Caitlin took a deep breath and reached for the flag, picking up the case and wiping off the dust that was on the gold tag, revealing the name and date. Jack Cole - 01/07/1954 - United States Air Force. Caitlin put the flag back down in the bottom of the box, sighing as she looked up at her own flag on the shelf. She packed away the rest of the contents, returning the box to the top shelf of the closet once more.

She curled up on the couch, idly wondering why someone had left behind such valuable treasures as the phone rang. Much to her surprise, it was her landlord, so she asked about the previous tenant and how to contact them, as they left some rather personal and valuable items behind when they moved. A tear slid down her cheek as the landlord informed her that the last tenant had been a woman named Denise Cole, a woman in her seventies and the only forwarding address left for her was heaven. She had passed away in the hospital and he had been the one to clean out the apartment. She had no family to speak of, no one came calling for her belongings, so he had packed them up and placed them in a storage unit, just in case. He told Caitlin he would collect the box when he was there to collect the rent and place it with the rest and she asked if she could keep it.

"I think I would like to read the letters and journal. If someone comes calling, send them to me to get the items, I will give them willingly."

The landlord agreed, letting her keep the treasures, hoping that for Denise's sake, or even Jack's sake someone would claim them. It was sad to see someone go on from the world as unnoticed as she had. They ended the conversation a few moments later and Caitlin went on about getting the apartment set up and ready for Ciara's arrival, not giving the box another thought for quite some time.