“Hi—Nanette?” a man says.
Nanette nods.
“I’m Alex’s father.”
He’s wearing a gray suit with a shiny red tie knotted tightly under his chin. He’s tall but weak-looking, with a long face that somehow reminds Nanette of a stork’s.
Maybe Alex has sent more poems or a letter? Nanette thinks, and her heart pounds. But when she notices that Mr. Redmer’s eyes are red, she begins to feel as though someone is strangling her.
“I don’t know what Alex has told you about me,” Mr. Redmer says. “My son, well, he sometimes had a problem holding on to the truth.”
Nanette doesn’t like Mr. Redmer’s use of past tense, and it suddenly feels like she is frozen solid—unable to speak or move.
“Ever since he was a little boy, Alex had this wild imagination—the most radical ideas seemed to burst from his mind. This got him into trouble more than it helped him, I’m afraid. And I’m rambling now. Sorry for that.”
Rivers of tears run through the wrinkles of Mr. Redmer’s face.
“What happened?” Nanette says.
“Alex is . . . well, he’s dead.”
“Dead?”
“Slipped and fell off his dorm building wall. Apparently, he tried to climb up to the roof. Didn’t make it. Died instantly. No pain. That was two weeks ago. They found this letter on his body. I hesitated, given the circumstances, went back and forth, but ultimately decided to give this to you.”
“Because it’s Valentine’s Day?” Nanette says, thinking that the timing couldn’t be crueler.
“I didn’t realize it was Valentine’s Day. Was it wrong of me to come today?”
She doesn’t know how to answer that. She feels as if she must check the facts again, because they don’t seem to add up. “So Alex is really dead. You just come here and say that two weeks after he dies?”
“I’m sorry. He’s gone. I don’t really know what else to say. I’ve never been good with these sorts of things.”
“Was there a funeral?” Nanette whispers.
“No funeral. I’m not religious. Alex was cremated. I put him into the sea. He liked the ocean.”
“Why didn’t you contact his friends?”
“Alex didn’t really have friends. Besides you. And you’re why I’m here now.”
“Does Oliver know?”
“Who is Oliver?”
“You seriously don’t know?”
“Was he the boy my son was claiming to protect? The one whose problems got Alex into so much trouble?” Mr. Redmer says, but not in an accusatory way. He’s merely trying to identify Oliver in his mind, although his not knowing for sure speaks volumes.
“Yeah,” Nanette says.
“I haven’t told anyone but you. Like I said, Alex didn’t have a lot of friends. He was sort of a loner, like his old man. Maybe you could tell Oliver? This hasn’t exactly been easy for me.”
Nanette agrees to tell Oliver and says she is sorry for Mr. Redmer’s loss.
“I didn’t allow Alex to correspond with you, because I didn’t want him to hurt you, but . . . well . . .”
Mr. Redmer nods and then extends the letter. His hand is shaking wildly. Nanette takes it, rushes past her parents (who have been eavesdropping in the hallway), and then locks her bedroom door behind her. She opens the envelope and wonders why she is not crying. It all feels too theoretical—surreal, maybe—and not true.
My Dearest Nanette,
I often wonder what you are doing and thinking. It’s very strange to have a girlfriend and yet never see or speak with her—no letters, even. It’s almost like dating a fictional character whom I dreamed up in my head, like we were written into the pages of a book I read long ago, but somehow that book was taken away from me, and so now I only have the memory of it, with which time plays games, altering everything in strange but subtle ways. But enough of that.
I bet you are wondering why this is the first time I have written you a letter. Well, I’m not allowed to write or receive letters here in this hellhole of a prison unless my father signs off on it, which he has refused to do. (I think he’s trying to protect me from you! Hahahaha!) So I couldn’t write you one for Christmas. The poems I gave you in that bag when read collectively were like a letter in code and I hope you understood the meaning. My dad doesn’t understand poetry so he acquiesced a little and let me give you the bag because I said you would help me get them published. (HAHAHAHA!) I have great plans for our future!
I’ve made friends with a teacher here—Mr. Harlow—and he said he would mail this for me if I aced my Intro to Philosophy exam, which I did, by writing an essay about you.
I am now writing you by moonlight. Tonight, she’s glowing full and bright as fresh milk—calling to me like a mother—and I’ve half a mind to finish this letter on the roof. Did you read my SPIDER-MAN poem? (I really do that sometimes. Don’t worry. I’m an ace climber.) The moonbeams are pulling hard tonight, and I really think I must ascend. This letter will be much better written if I write while elevated. The night air will perfume my words and stuff my sentences with moonbeam magic!
That’s all there is. Nanette reads the unfinished letter over and over again, and each time she gets to the end, she’s forced to create a little movie in her mind—she’s doomed to see Alex trying to scuttle up the brick wall like a human-sized spider until his fingertips give out or his dress shoe tips fail to find a crack and he falls back starfish-like toward Earth and then—poof—everything in Alex’s mind is instantly erased like a computer that got too close to a magnet.