Return to sender

I guess who I am is irrelevant to the story, but what I did and why this brown paper box comes to me every year is what's going to blow your mind. I did something bad. I mean really bad. I have some issues with alcohol. I did all the things that come along with being an alcoholic. I also did the worst thing you could do as a drunk. I was at my favorite bar during the day drinking my favorite whiskey. When I was done I grabbed my car keys and began my drive home. Don't be alarmed because I would eventually tell this to the police, but we will get to this later. I would drink and drive on a regular basis because I knew my path home like the back of my hand. Even if I was blind I could drive home, that's how good I was. This particular day, my route was changed due to the big orange barrels that were blocking the road. I turned down a side street to go around, and she came out of nowhere, she had to be no more than six years old. No parents were around, the street was empty. No one came outside. I killed her. I saw the blood coming from her nose and ears. Her body was shaking, then she stopped. I panicked, I'm well off, and I have a high position at a major company, My wife, my kids. I have too much to lose, so I left. I know, what a crappy thing to do. I do think about her. A six year old child. I left her in the street dead. I went home and cleaned the blood off my car in the garage. My mind was racing. My wife said something to me but for the life of me, I can not tell you anything that she said that day. I couldn't tell you what anyone said that day for that matter. I hid, I watched the news trying to see if anything would come up about a hit and run. All the channels had nothing. I called all the hospitals and they didn't have any kids come in hit by a car. Part of me was relieved. I tried to rationalize what happened. Maybe it didn't happen. Maybe it was in my mind. Maybe I was so drunk I just thought that happened. I stayed home in bed for the next few days. I didn't drink, I didn't think about drinking, I just slept. My wife and kids thought I was sick. I was scared I would lose everything I built over this.

I called the police to see if there was any news of hit and runs in the area. I called under the guise of a news reporter looking for a story but they said they knew nothing. I was on edge, every time I heard a phone ring, text message, I even freaked out when I heard the mailman come to the mailbox. This is making me crazy. Why did this have to happen to me? Why were they working on that street of all days? Where were that little girl's parents? How come they didn't report her, or take her to the hospital? This is not my fault. Who leaves a six year old outside unattended? I need a drink.

My wife knows I am having some issues with alcohol so she stopped keeping it in the house but I got a few spots I hid my drinks in. I started to drink more after my dad died. We were close even though he was a jerk, but that was his generation , complainers. I started drinking in the garage with my dad when I was about 11yrs old. It was our thing. We never told my mom. We would listen to the baseball game and drink some Jack. I was his only friend besides that bottle. If he never got me started drinking I wouldn't be in this mess. Whatever! I found so small bottles of vodka I got from a hotel's wet bar I hid some months back. It wasn't enough to get me over the hump but it did help me muster up some courage. I got in my car and drove back to where I hit that kid. I parked a couple streets over and walked to where she ran in front of my car. Strange, no blood was there, nothing. I know I hit that girl. I tried to reason that it was just part of my imagination, but the truth is the truth. If nobody's making it an issue, I have to let it go too. I went home.

The next three months everything went back to normal with me. Work was going well. Me and my wife were doing good. My kids seem to be happy, and I found a new bar I liked drinking at. My life was alright, but some really weird things started to happen. The mirrors on all of our cars were broken. We called the police and they thought it was the work of vandals. The cops didn't do anything except suggest we get security cameras. My wife wanted them but we live in a great neighborhood, and I figured I'd eventually catch those criminals. Next, the brake line on my wife's car was cut. My son's bike was stolen. This happened all inside of three weeks. My wife felt like we were being targeted for something. I felt that way too. I started getting phone calls where the person on the other line would just hang up. This happened at work and on my cell. I got a letter at work that said four words “Tell what you did.” I threw that in the trash. I was not gonna do that. I did want to know where that note came from. When I got home my wife said there was a young woman that approached her at the market and told her to ask me ”what I did.” I asked her who she was? What did she look like? If she had any information about her, she couldn't tell me anything. This caused my wife to think I was cheating, but I have not had any outside proclivities in a very long time. I had a few one night stands, oh yeah the college girl I loosely dated, but I broke it off with her after a drug accusation. So I really didn't have ties to any outside interest that would be stalker-ish. I tried to assure her I was being faithful, but she was not hearing it. She was mad. We argued about my drinking, this mystery woman, whatever it was that I did. Because I wouldn't tell her what she thought I was hiding, she thought I was lying about the woman. Over the next year we would have fights and she would leave with the kids and come back. She knew I was hiding something other than my alcoholism. I was OK with the fighting, what I was not OK with was all the notes left for me at home and work saying “Tell what you did.” I did nothing.

After a while the notes stopped. And I started receiving these brown packages with no return address. They came with instructions. The first instruction was to stop drinking. The second was to never open the package. The third instruction was to keep the package until the next one was dropped off. I thought it was my wife messing with me but a lot of bad stuff started happening to my family so I knew it wasn't her. The first time the package came I opened it. It had a bottle of Jack. I knew I shouldn't trust it but I couldn't leave a bottle of Jack unopened. The next day I lost my job due to some shortcuts I took to save myself and the company some money. Someone leaked some of my private emails. Then my mom called me to tell me she had cancer. Weird , but I didn't want to think these events were related. When I opened the next package I poured the bottle down the drain, and threw everything in the trash. One hour after doing this my wife told me she was pregnant, but because she wanted to be honest with me, the baby may not be mine. She also let me know she couldn't love me the way I needed to be loved and needed to figure things out. More and more things started to unravel with our relationship. I found out she slept with my best man the night before my wedding. She also had an ongoing three year relationship with one of my co-workers. I'm so hurt, how could she do this to me? Everything I invested into this relationship she poured it down the drain. The next package that came I didn't read the rules. I took it straight to a bridge and threw it over. What happened next really cemented in my mind that I was being victimized by God or some higher power because of a stupid little kid that ran in front of my car. My wife calls me hysterical. Our son was riding on her-boyfriends jet-skis and fell off and drowned. My son, this is my fault. I'm broken. After the funeral I went into a deep depression. I've lost everything. I figured I'd go to the cops and tell them what I did.

It had been almost 3 years since I hit that little girl. I walked into the police station straight up to the counter, gave them my name and told them, three years ago I was driving while drunk and I hit a kid. The officer took me into a room and two detectives came in and sat down to talk with me. They strangely were really nice about it. I guess they thought my conscience brought me in, but really I just want those packages to stop ruining my life. I lost a son. How much more could I lose? After I told them where the accident happened the detectives left the room and came back after about an hour and a half. They said they looked at all cases from that street and didn't see any crimes there in the past ten years. In fact they haven't had a call in a three block radius of that area in five years, None of which was a hit and run of a child. They asked me to take them to where I said I hit the girl. We rode in their car and mistakenly I let them know about the packages I started to receive. I could tell they started to think I was some nut job. When we got there we got out and I showed them where and how I hit the girl. I gave them her full description. They put me back into the car and knocked on a couple doors and talked to some of the neighbors. When they came back they said a couple older ladies said that there was a hit and run of a young girl. My heart sank, I just knew I was going to prison. But at least I won't get those packages in prison. Then the cop said this happened 25 years ago. Laughing they said unless I was driving a Delorian with a flex capacitor, It could not have been me. They said I probably hit a cat, or maybe I got the city wrong. I pointed out the bar I used to go to on the way back to the station. I told them about the packages I'm getting again and what was in them. I told them about all the things that were happening since I hit that girl. They told me I should start going to AA meetings, and maybe I'm feeling guilty about losing my son. I told them I want the packages to stop coming. They told me to return it to the sender, like I'm an idiot. Once we got back to the station they told me they will look into surrounding cities for hit and runs of any people, but I should just go home and talk to someone about my mental health.

After a few days my mother came by to talk about how her treatment was going. She sat down and we began to talk. “Where did you get that package from?” She asked. I don't know. They just started coming to me. I said to her. I needed someone to know about what was going on. I told her about the bad stuff that was happening to me after these packages started coming. I talked for hours. She sat with a startled look on her face. Your father used to get these exact packages sent to him. No return address. They always had a bottle of whiskey in them. He said they were bad luck. He tried everything to stop them from coming. He even went to the post office and beat up the manager, but they just kept coming. He couldn't just get rid of them. He would hide in that garage most of the time and drink. Don't you remember.? She asked. I did remember because I was right there drinking with him. He became paranoid, and mean. He wasn't always like that. In his sleep he would have nightmares about a little girl he hit with his car. When I would ask him about it he would just say “it was just a nightmare” and then go into the garage and drink. My heart sank when she told me this. Is he the cause of all my problems. Did I really hit this kid? Or am I just remembering a drunken story he told me in that garage as a kid?

Is this some curse on me because of something he did? What I do know is now I'm stuck getting these packages and somehow I'm going to make it stop.