Chapter 3 - What Jordan Left Behind
Renee stood slowly.
“What do you mean, part of it?”
David looked toward the hallway.
“Can we talk in the kitchen?”
“No.”
Her answer was quiet but immediate.
For years, she had allowed painful conversations to disappear behind closed doors.
Not this time.
“Elijah deserves to hear about his brother,” she said.
David glanced at their son.
The boy sat very still, gripping the oversized sleeves.
“Did Jordan buy me this?” Elijah asked.
“No,” David answered. “He bought it for himself.”
“Then why is it my present?”
David leaned forward.
“Because he made a decision about it.”
The afternoon sunlight had shifted across the floor.
Elijah's discarded dinosaur blanket lay near the doorway, forgotten.
David began explaining.
During Jordan's final hospitalization, he had become fascinated with the idea of growing up.
He asked his parents what high school would be like. Whether he would ever be taller than his father. Whether Elijah would still want to play with him when he became a teenager.
One evening, Jordan had asked David to bring his favorite plaid shirt to the hospital.
David thought he wanted something familiar.
He brought it the next morning.
Jordan held it across his lap and smiled.
“Remember when Mom said I couldn't wear this to church because it was wrinkled?”
David laughed.
“You told her wrinkles were part of the style.”
“Still true.”
Then Jordan became serious.
“Dad, can you keep it for Eli?”
David had thought his son was merely being sentimental.
“Of course.”
“No. I mean, when he's big enough.”
“Why?”
Jordan had looked down at the shirt.
“Because he likes wearing my stuff.”
It was true.
At home, Elijah frequently pulled Jordan's hoodies over his pajamas and stumbled through the hallway pretending to be his big brother.
Jordan always laughed.
“He's gonna look funny in this,” Jordan had said. “But he'll grow into it.”
David had promised to keep the shirt safe.
“And then,” he told Elijah, “your brother asked me for something else.”
“What?”
“A pen and a piece of paper.”
Renee stared at him.
“You never told me that.”
David nodded slowly.
“I know.”
He described how Jordan had spent several minutes writing a message, stopping occasionally because his hands were tired.
When he finished, he folded the paper into a small square.
He slid it into the shirt's left chest pocket.
“Don't read it,” he told David.
“Why not?”
“It's for Eli.”
David had smiled.
“Okay, buddy.”
“Promise you'll give it to him?”
“I promise.”
Jordan made him repeat it.
Twice.
Renee's hand moved to her mouth.
“David, where's the note?”
His expression changed.
“I don't know.”
The words seemed to remove what little air remained in the room.
Renee stared at him.
“What?”
“After Jordan died, I brought his things home from the hospital. I put everything in his room. When we finally packed his clothes, I looked through the pockets.”
“And?”
“I couldn't find it.”
Renee glanced at Elijah's shirt.
“Did you check that one?”
“I thought I did.”
“Thought?”
David looked ashamed.
“Renee, I was barely functioning.”
She knew that was true.
In those first months, he had sometimes sat outside Jordan's bedroom for an hour without opening the door.
He had gone to work and forgotten why he was there.
He had left dinner untouched, then claimed he wasn't hungry.
Still, she could not understand why he had never told her about the note.
“Why keep this from me?”
David's answer came slowly.
“Because he trusted me with it.”
His eyes reddened.
“And I lost it.”
For years, David had treated the missing letter as proof that he had failed his son.
He couldn't bear explaining that failure to Renee.
So he had remained silent.
Elijah looked between them.
“Maybe it's still here.”
David forced a small smile.
“I don't think so, buddy.”
“Did you check this pocket?”
Elijah pointed to the crooked square on his chest.
David nodded.
“Yes.”
But Elijah had already slipped his small fingers inside.
He felt something.
Not paper.
Something hard.
“There's a thing in here.”
Renee leaned forward.
“What thing?”
Elijah tugged at the pocket lining.
A tiny metallic object caught the light.
David immediately recognized it.
His face went pale.
“That's Jordan's.”
Elijah looked up.
“What is it?”
David whispered, “His little basketball charm.”
Jordan had carried a miniature silver basketball on his backpack zipper for years.
The family had searched for it after his death.
No one had found it.
Renee reached for the charm.
It was attached to a short piece of blue thread.
And the thread disappeared into a small opening beneath the pocket lining.
May you like
David stared at it.
For the first time in four years, he wondered whether Jordan had hidden more than a folded note in that shirt.
