Part 7 — “Letters in the Wind”
It started with a gust.
A Monday morning, early spring. The sky was gray and rippled like a sheet of old tin. Nathan had just poured coffee into his thermos when Switch’s ears perked up and the trees behind the station began to rustle.
The wind didn’t just blow — it surged.
Nathan dropped his glove, and before he could grab it, it skittered across the platform like a leaf. He turned toward the bench.
The biscuit tin — the one where they kept all the notes — had been left cracked open from the day before.
“No, no, no,” he muttered, running.
But it was too late.
The wind lifted the paper scraps into the air like feathers. Some twirled upward and vanished over the fence. Others danced along the gravel and between the benches like they were trying to escape memory itself.
Jo pulled into the lot just as Nathan was on all fours chasing a yellowing scrap beneath the wagon.
“What happened?” she called, stepping out of her truck.
“The wind,” Nathan said breathlessly. “The box was open. The notes—”
She didn’t wait. She joined the chase.
Together, they gathered what they could. Some were stuck between fence boards, some pinned beneath stones. Others were wet from puddles or torn by thorns in the overgrown hedges. Nathan caught one midair. He unfolded it — Clyde’s handwriting.
Benny — I told him I wasn’t angry, but I was. Not at him. At myself.
He pressed it flat and tucked it safely in his coat pocket.
Jo returned with a handful of damp slips and a twig caught in her hair.
“I think we got most,” she said.
But Nathan was staring out across the tracks.
“One blew toward the old switch shed,” he said. “The one Dad always kept locked.”
Jo followed his gaze. “The one Switch came from?”
He nodded. “I never tried to open it.”
Jo stepped toward the edge of the platform. “We can check.”
The old switch shed was barely more than a shack — wood siding, warped door, and a rusted padlock that hung open now, broken at the hinge.
Nathan hesitated, his hand on the door. The wind had died down, but something still stirred inside him. A knot. A memory.
He pushed the door open.
Inside was dust. And time.
Stacks of yellowed maintenance reports. A shovel. A folded tarp.
And a wooden box. Small. Carefully sealed with a strip of black cloth.
Jo stayed outside. “Want me to wait?”
Nathan shook his head. “No. Come in.”
He knelt and opened the box.
Inside were photos.
Of Benny. Of Clyde. Of Clyde with a much younger Nathan — maybe eight years old, grinning wildly beside a birthday cake shaped like a train.
Nathan reached for the envelope tucked beneath the stack.
Written on the front: For Nathan. Only if I never say it out loud.
His breath caught.
He sat down hard on the dusty floor, Switch curling beside him like he already knew the gravity of the moment.
Nathan opened the envelope and began to read.
Son,
I didn’t know how to be a father. I thought I had more time to figure it out. But then you grew up, and I kept working, and when your mother died, the silence between us filled in like concrete.
I yelled when I should’ve listened. I watched you walk away and didn’t chase you. But you need to know, that wasn’t because I didn’t care. It was because I thought I deserved it.
The night you left, I sat in the station and wrote twenty letters. I didn’t send them. I was too ashamed. I put them in this box instead.
Maybe you’ll find them. Maybe you won’t. But if you’re reading this — thank you for coming back. Thank you for caring for Benny. For carrying what I couldn’t.
You’re a better man than I ever was. And I’m proud of you. I always was.
Dad
Jo didn’t speak as Nathan wiped his face with both hands.
The silence hung heavy, but warm.
Then Nathan reached back into the box and pulled out the stack of letters. One by one. Dated. Labeled.
“To Nathan, the day after he left.”
“To Nathan, when the dog got sick.”
“To Nathan, when the power went out and I lit a candle for his birthday.”
He held them like a map he hadn’t known existed.
“I thought I knew all the notes,” he whispered.
Jo touched his shoulder. “Looks like he saved the most important ones for last.”
They brought the box back to the platform.
Nathan spread the letters out gently, drying the corners in the sun. The wind had stopped completely, as if it knew the work was sacred now.
He placed the biscuit tin back on the bench, reinforced with tape and a new latch. Then he added a sign.
Leave a note. Or read one. We don’t throw anything away here.
That evening, Nathan sat on the porch with Switch curled at his feet and a lamp buzzing beside him. He opened the first letter.
To Nathan, the day after he left.
And he began to read.
He read until the sun set. Until the porch light flickered. Until the words blurred.
Each letter was a breadcrumb.
Some full of regret.
Some full of love.
Some full of nothing more than descriptions of rain, or the station’s silence, or Benny’s dreams.
But together, they told a truth Nathan had never been given out loud:
Clyde had never stopped trying.
He had just never known how to say it face to face.
The next morning, Nathan left a new note under the red wagon.
Dad — I found the box.
I found the letters. All of them.
And maybe it’s too late to say this to your face, but I forgive you. I do.
You tried in the only way you knew how. And somehow, it was enough.
We’re okay now.
Switch barked once — sharp, sudden — as if agreeing.
Jo arrived later with her own letter.
She tucked it into the tin and didn’t speak of it.
Nathan didn’t ask.
That was the rule now.
You could read.
You could leave.
But no one had to explain.
That night, a boy — maybe sixteen — sat on the bench for nearly an hour. He didn’t pet Switch. Didn’t speak to Nathan. Just sat.
When he finally stood, he left behind a slip of notebook paper.
Nathan waited until the boy walked off, then opened it.
I told my dad I hated him last week. I think I need to tell him I didn’t mean it. This place made me realize that.
Nathan smiled.
Then folded it and placed it in the tin, safe among the others.