Passing

The Return

I was glad I didn’t have to struggle with the luggage as I made my way to the airport door. The little wheels on the bag making the effort light. The door ahead of me opened automatically and the Air Force Cadet on the way in nodded at me politely. Pausing just long enough to make sure Peter and Claire were following, I stepped out into the mountain air.

We found the rental car and set out for the hotel. The Rockies were just as beautiful as I remembered but the city of Colorado Springs had built up much since the last time I was here. Claire sat staring out the window as we drove, fascinated by the mountains in comparison to the flat plains of home. Peter just sat and played his Gameboy. He wasn’t happy to be here and it radiated off him in waves. I knew it wasn’t just because I had dragged him on a wild goose chase. He knew what the doctor had said about this trip and he was worried.

To be honest I wasn’t entirely sure why we were here myself other than I had no choice. Not once I had found the box. I had never forgotten Kit and that wonderful trip but it was something I had thought long behind me. When he had not written nor replied to my letters, I tried every means to try and contact him with no success. Phone calls had proven useless. According to the phone company in Colorado Springs, the Spirit Peak Resort did not exist. I didn’t have the money to make a return trip and my parents were no help, not after they saw the pictures.

It was a stupid mistake that let my mother get the hold of the first set of pictures from the photo booth. I had intended to let them see the second set. The sight of her precious daughter kissing and hugging a strange boy that way. And not just a boy but an Indian was unacceptable. She never said the latter out loud but I could tell it was there every time she talked about Kit.

At least my friend Jeremy understood and stood by my side. Perhaps understood was too strong a word. I had known he had feelings for me since we were children though why he kept after me I’ll never know, especially after the incident at the prom. But he stood by me and gave me support when my parents’ attitude drove me to tears.

Months passed and I came to accept that Kit wasn’t going to contact me and I couldn’t contact him. I fell into a deep depression then and again Jeremy was there to help me. I wasn’t sure when my friendship for him began to change but as my love for Kit went unrequited my love for Jeremy grew to fill the void. It had only been a matter of time that we wound up in bed together.

It was some months after that, the omen came. We were sitting on the patio of my apartment when he appeared. A coyote just like in my strange dream, although Jeremy insisted it was dog. He just walked up to us. He came and sniffed my hand when I held it out and let me pet him. Then he sniffed us both thoroughly and when I tried to pet him again he growled at me and ran off. Jeremy commented something about him smelling our love making from earlier.

I took at as an omen that Jeremy was replacing Kit in my life. It was soon after that Jeremy proposed and I accepted. My marriage to Jeremy was wonderful, eventually Claire was born and Peter a year later. Life was good, I even managed to reconcile with mother. Then Jeremy was killed in car wreck. I was devastated but my little family managed to get through it. My bonds to my family grew even stronger as a result.

So my life continued and I was happy but there was always that little thought of what might have been if Kit had answered my letters. Then three months ago, mother died. Father had passed on a year before. It was in the process of clearing out her things when I found the box. It was a plain unmarked brown box in the attic, far too innocuous appearing to have such an impact on my world.

Inside was all the letters I had written to Kit and equally large collection of letters Kit had written to me! My heart ached as I read; he professed his love and how he looked forward to being together again. The growing confusion when I didn’t write to him. He tried to call but the number I left with the Resort was my parent’s home. At first they simply told him I wasn’t available, and then they told him I didn’t want to talk to him and not to call anymore. Most heartbreaking of all was the final letter, where he acknowledged ‘my letter’ telling him I loved another, a letter I never wrote. He wished me happiness and that he would always love me.

I was infuriated! If my mother was not already dead, I would have killed her. I did find someone to vent my anger on. It caused quite a stir when I charged into the local post office where Aunt Joan was still Post Mistress, despite her advanced age, and started screaming at her at the top of my lungs. She quickly admitted to helping my mother in intercepting the letters. I haven’t talked to her since.

And now I was here in Colorado again, I don’t know what hope there was of finding him after all these years. I just knew I had to try. My resumed search for Spirit Peak Resort had proven just as fruitless as before but I did find something. I found Michele Thompson. Hopefully she could help me answer some of my questions and soon. Because I was running out of time.