Page 29 of Lost With My Enemy

"Don't use my language against me."

"Your language is very useful."

The apartment is small but lived-in now. Six months ago, when I first visited after the road trip, the place looked like a man had been using it as a storage locker between flights. Bare walls, a couch with no throw pillows, a kitchen with exactly one pot and a bottle of hot sauce. The dream catcher hung from a nail by the front door because the truck was parked outside and he wanted it close.

Now there's a bookshelf with actual books on it. A french press on the kitchen counter next to a pour-over setup because we've reached the stage of the relationship where we keep duplicate coffee equipment in two cities. My toiletries have a shelf in the bathroom, lined up in order of use. His duffel bag sits in the hall closet of my Toronto apartment, next to a pair of hiking boots that track mud onto my floors every other weekend.

We split time. Two weeks in Toronto, two weeks in Calgary. Sometimes a week here, a week there, depending on clients and shoots. My planner has a colour-coding system for it: blue for Toronto days, green for Calgary days, and a new colour I added in November. Gold. For the days we're in the same city at the same time, which happen more often than the geography should allow.

Jaxon picks at the tape on the first box. It peels back with a sound that makes him flinch.

Moving across the room, I sit down beside him on the carpet. Not touching. Close enough that my knee is an inch from his. Close enough that he can reach for me if he needs to.

He opens the box.

On top is a wool blanket, red and black, folded into a tight square. He lifts it out and presses it to his face. His shoulders shake once, then go still.

"She made this," he says into the fabric. "Star blanket pattern. She was working on it the winter before the diagnosis." He lowers it, and his eyes are wet. "She finished it in the hospital. The nurses let her bring her loom in. She said she wasn't going to leave anything undone."

My hand finds his knee. He covers it with his own.

Underneath the blanket are photos. A stack of them, loose, some in frames. Jaxon as a kid, maybe eight, grinning in a canoe with a woman whose face is so much like his it makes my breath catch. Dark hair, brown eyes, the same crinkles. Kenzie as a teenager, laughing at something off-camera. The three of them at a kitchen table covered in beading supplies, a half-finished dream catcher between them.

"That's the kitchen," he says. "In the Cochrane house. She taught classes there on Saturdays. Anyone who wanted to learn. She never charged."

"She's beautiful."

"She was."

The second box has more practical things. Her reading glasses. A recipe book with handwritten additions in the margins, hot sauce quantities circled and starred. A beaded bracelet in blue and white. A stack of birthday cards she'd saved, one from Jaxon every year, most of them sent from different countries with stamps she'd apparently kept.

"She saved every one," he says, turning a postmarked card from Iceland over in his hands. "I sent these from airports at the last minute. I'd grab whatever card the gift shop had. Half of them say 'Happy Birthday, Grandma' because that's all they carried." A rough laugh. "She saved them anyway."

The third box is smaller. Inside is a single envelope, unsealed, with Jax written on the front in careful handwriting.

His hand freezes over it.

"I didn't know this was in here."

"Do you want me to step out?"

"No." His fingers close around mine on his knee. "Stay."

He opens the envelope. A single page, folded twice. He reads it in silence, then reads it again. Then he hands it to me.

My Jaxon,

If you're reading this, I'm gone, and you've finally opened the boxes. Knowing you, it took a while. That's okay. You always did things on your own time.

I want you to know that every photo you sent me was a gift. I put them all on the wall because I wanted to see the world through your eyes. But my favourite thing was never the mountains or the glaciers or the oceans. It was knowing you were out there, seeing beautiful things and wanting to share them with me.

The one thing I wished for was a photo of you. You were always behind the camera. You showed me the whole world but never yourself. Promise me you'll let someone see you, Jax. Not the photos. You.

I love you bigger than the sky.

Mom

The letter blurs in my hands. When I look up, Jaxon is crying. Quiet, steady tears, the kind that come when the grief is old enough to be gentle instead of sharp.