In the Middle of Nowhere by Julie Ann Knudsen Page B

Just as my mom and James started to walk in,
I noticed that there was mail stuffed inside our mailbox. I guessed
the mailman had delivered it late after all. I grabbed the pile
before I followed them inside and bolted the door behind me.
    James and my mom went straight to bed while I
stood next to the front door flipping through junk mail, flyers and
bills. I was searching for my grandmother’s birthday card and
finally found it. I placed it on the very top and put the whole
stack on the antique side table so I could take off my coat and
scarf.
    As I slipped off my jacket, my arm knocked
some of the mail onto the floor, including my grandmother’s card. I
bent over and collected the mail, but couldn’t find the card from
my grandma anywhere.
    I got on my hands and knees and searched
around. It was nowhere to be found. How the heck could I have lost
a card I was holding just a few seconds before?
    I ducked underneath the side table and
searched behind it. When I actually lay down flat on the floor, I
could see a white envelope and the corner of a red one stuck
between the table and the wall. I used my fingers to pry both of
them from their secret hiding place.
    I recognized my grandmother’s handwriting on
the big white envelope right away and knew it was my birthday card,
but I was unsure whom the red envelope was from even though it was
addressed to me.
    I opened my grandma’s card and smiled as I
read it and, like always, she sent me a generous check. She signed
it “Happy Anniversary, Willow. Love, Grandma & Grandpa.”
    I put down the card and check and tore open
the mysterious small, red envelope. It was a Christmas card with a
picture of a fireplace and a decorated mantel on the front. I
opened the inside and read:
     
    “Willow,
    MERRY you will be,
    on CHRISTMAS you will see,
    the joy TO be given,
    like our savior, YOU are risen.”
    And it was simply signed, “Michael.”
     
    When did Michael send me a Christmas card, I
wondered and how did it get stuck behind the table? I was puzzled
at first, but thought back and suddenly remembered how it had come
in the mail during Christmas break and I had intended to read it,
but hurried out because Tessa was waiting for me in the driveway.
It must have fallen off of the table like my grandmother’s card and
been wedged back there the whole time.
    Now that I solved the mystery of its arrival,
I had to reread it to figure out what his words meant. More than
that, I was baffled because I hadn’t seen nor heard from him since
that terrible night on Thanksgiving. Why did he feel the need to
reach out to me at all when he clearly was pissed off at me?
    At the very least, the unexpected card meant
that he was alive and, hopefully, doing well. Even so, why couldn’t
Michael just call me and say, “Hi!” like a normal person? Why did
he feel the need to send me a cryptic note instead, with a poem
that didn’t make any sense?
    I read the note again and noticed that one
word in each line of the poem was capitalized. I kept rereading it
and when I finally pulled out just the capitalized words and put
them in a sentence, I realized that the message read: “MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU.”
    Still, I was confused. It had been almost
three weeks since Michael had sent me the card and I hadn’t heard
another word from him in between. What was I to do? Thank him for
the Christmas card or send him one after the fact?
    I quickly realized that I couldn’t have sent
him a card even if I wanted to because he didn’t write his address
on the envelope. I had even tried to look up his address online
through a free white pages website a while back, but there was no
listing for him or his family.
    Why did Michael Cooper do this to me? I had
been feeling so joyful after my terrific birthday party, as if I
were floating on a cloud and, now, his stupid note had totally
burst my bubble and sent me crashing back to Earth.
    I had moved on with my life and I thought
Michael would have, too. I wished