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“What are you writing?”

“I figured we might as well take notes of the things we need to order and our ideas with them. I mean, you’ve got at least a couple hundred totes. It’s going to be hard to remember it all first hand.” I glance around. “You don’t have any packing tape, or any tape and a Sharpie, do you?”

He comes back with some neon yellow duct tape. “This is all I have. Payton must’ve left it here after she helped Piper with a school project.”

“Do you get along well with your sisters?” I ask, tearing off a piece of the tape. With it stuck to the lid of the tote, I write a large #1 on it and drag it to the side of the room.

“For the most part,” he says, chuckling. “They each have very distinct personalities and I’m either mad or rolling on the floor with laughter when they’re around. What about you?”

I nod. “I only have brothers, but we all get along. My mom had all three of them with her first husband and thought she was done. So, when she married my dad, I was a surprise. There were a lot of times when my brothers were the babysitters, because they were in high school when I was just starting elementary.”

Trey smiles. “I’m sure there are a lot of memories that go with it.”

Laughing, I say, “That’s for sure. They would just take me along on whatever activity they were doing with friends. They took me rock climbing, with actual hooks and ropes into a mountainside, when I was six. I was terrified at first, but finally got the hang of it.”

Opening another box, I pull out what looks like random cards from over the years. There are birthday cards from even his first birthday in here, congratulations for his elementary graduation and so many more. “What do you want to do with the cards?”

Trey frowns. “Um, what do normal people do with cards?”

“Well, if you were my grandmother, she kept them until the day she died tucked in a box like this. But if you don’t care about the Hallmark card you got from your aunt’s cousin twice-removed, I’d say we could chuck them.”

He breathes out a sigh and nods. “Do that then.”

He’s pulling out several squares of fabric. “What was she going to do with these?”

On the front is the logo of his youth hockey team name. I lean over and see several more pieces. “It looks like your mom was keeping them to make into a blanket. That’s really cool. So many memories in one blanket.”

“Do you have one?” he asks, putting the squares back in the box.

“No, I’ve just seen advertisements of people who’ve turned them into a large quilt. It’s a great idea and then you can save some of the things that don’t fit anymore.”

I turn my attention back to the tote I’m going through, and I realize I need a garbage bag. I stand and go get the box of bags from the kitchen. Between my dad’s place and here, the amount of garbage bags I’m using is insane. But all part of the job.

I thumb through each stack of cards I pull out of the box, making sure I’m just throwing away the cards. Halfway through the box, I pause, seeing something very familiar. I pick it up and can barely breathe as I look at my own handwriting from years ago.

As a girl who didn’t know how to talk to a guy, I figured the best way to express my feelings was through an anonymous letter.

I opened it, cringing at the wording.

Trey,

You are the best. Thanks for being such a nice person and a great hockey player. I think you’ll go far in hockey and I can’t wait to watch you on TV. Good luck at school this year. Make sure to come back to hockey camp next year.

Sincerely,

Anonymous

I slap my forehead. I’d written this the first year I’d gone to the camp, at the age of twelve, I think.

Bending over, I see another card with my handwriting on it. I’m not sure I can handle the embarrassment. But then again, he’d kept every card I’d sent him throughout the summer hockey camps, the ones I left near his gear so he wouldn’t know I’d delivered them.

“What do you have there?” Trey asks. He scoots over and takes one of the papers from my hand. I thought about fighting him for it, making sure he didn’t see it, but then he’d be suspicious.

“Some secret admirer?” I say, trying to act casually.

I watch as his eyes read over the page. He smiles and nods. “Yeah, I got these every year at hockey camp.”

“Do you know who they were from?” My lungs are squeezing together as I wait for the answer, making it hard to breathe.