The garbage truck was two blocks away when I found it.
I could hear it grinding and beeping down the street, that ugly hydraulic groan, the clank of a bin being lifted and slammed back down. It was 7:30 on a Sunday morning, and I had only come back to my parents’ house for one reason. I’d left my jacket on the back of a kitchen chair after Dad’s 60th birthday party the night before.
That was it. Grab the jacket. Maybe have a cup of coffee with Mom if she was up. In and out.
I pulled into the driveway and saw the cans lined up at the curb. Pickup day. Nothing strange about that.
But sitting on top of the recycling bin, tipped a little to one side, was a brown paper grocery bag. And sticking out of the top of that bag was a corner of brown craft paper, tied with twine.
I knew that paper. I knew that twine. I had wrapped it myself at my kitchen table two nights earlier, folding the corners three times until they were perfect.
I got out of my truck. My legs moved on their own. I walked over and pulled the bag open.
There it was. The chess set.
Still wrapped. The twine still knotted the way I’d knotted it. He hadn’t even opened it a second time. He’d taken it off the table after the party and thrown it out with the paper plates and the napkins and the empty beer cans. There was a smear of white frosting on the paper right where the brass nameplate sat underneath.
Three months of my life. Every night until two in the morning. Sanding, shaping, oiling, engraving.
I stood there holding it, and the truck got closer. Beep. Grind. Clank.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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