I couldn’t open that freezer for a year. I finally did it in September because the house was going on the market, and it was full — every shelf labeled in his handwriting. I stood there for several minutes before I noticed the shoebox on the top shelf with my name on it. I carried it to the kitchen table and sat down before opening it. Inside was a stack of envelopes, each one dated and labeled with places I’d mentioned wanting to visit.
The first envelope said “Maine.” Inside was a brochure from a little seaside inn and a handwritten list of things he thought I’d enjoy seeing there. The next was “Nova Scotia,” then “Charleston,” then “Yellowstone.” He’d apparently been planning our trips one at a time, setting aside money whenever he could without telling me. The freezer hadn’t been an impulse purchase at all. He had bought it used because the owner was moving and sold it cheaply, and he’d planned to use the savings to rebuild the travel fund after paying for the things he thought we’d need at home.
At the bottom of the box was an envelope dated March, the month he’d brought the freezer home. He’d written that he knew I’d been disappointed and that he hadn’t found the courage to tell me the real reason. He said he’d wanted our first trip to be somewhere I chose, not somewhere he chose for me. “Forty-one years,” he wrote. “You’ve followed me every time I’ve said we couldn’t afford something. I wanted to make sure that if we ever went somewhere just for you, the money would already be there.” I had to stop reading because I couldn’t see the page through my tears.
There was one final envelope marked “Open when you’re ready to leave.” Inside was a hotel reservation, made for two, for the exact trip I’d once told him was my dream. The reservation date was the following spring. He had planned it before his heart attack in August. I sat at the table with that paper in my hands and finally understood why he had never defended the freezer when I was angry about it. He wasn’t choosing the freezer over our trip. He was trying to make sure the trip finally happened.
