Small Black Boxes

By Susan C. Turner

A powerful novel of life, death, and reaching beyond memories to find healing. "The Secretary of the Air Force has asked me to express his deep regret that your husband, Major Walter Pritchard, was killed in action in Afghanistan. He and several of his men were involved in a firefight in a small village near Kandahar. The Secretary extends his deepest sympathy to you and your family in your tragic loss." With those words, 15-year-old Leah Pritchard's world would never be the same. As she and her family start the process of saying good-bye to their husband and father, twelve boxes are delivered. These boxes, filled with the belongings of the man she knew as a father, slowly start to introduce Leah to the Walter Pritchard known to the world. A beautifully written tale of love and family, Small Black Boxes follows Leah as she watches each item weave a tale of her father's life. The reader is transported with Leah as she follows the path of Walter's memories until the last box, when Leah must continue on alone. This book was written as a tribute to the men and women who have died in service to our country and to the families they leave behind to grieve their loss and hold fast to their memory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Susan C. Turner
• Release date: Oct 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9780982284292

Susan C. Turner

Writer and illustrator Susan C. Turner's recent work concentrates in the crime/mystery arena. She prefers to set her narratives in the pre- and postwar periods of the 1930s and 1940s. Mission Budapest is second in a series featuring characters Harry Douglas and Mick MacLeod. The first book in this collection, The Truth About Otis Battersby, was published in 2022. The third novel, coming in 2024, is entitled Assignment in Oran. Born in New York, she has lived in Miami and London, and now resides in Tampa with husband John, and articulate and loveable cat, Duffy.

Book preview

Small Black Boxes

by Susan C. Turner

Smashwords Edition

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, businesses, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book is available in print at most online retailers.

First paperback edition, May 2010

Copyright 2009, Susan C. Turner

All rights reserved. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you wish to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010900274

ISBN-13: 978-0-9822842-9-2

Summary: A story of grief, remembrance, and tribute; fifteen-year-old Leah Pritchard’s father is killed by enemy fire in Afghanistan. The title refers to the military practice of returning a dead soldier’s personal effects to his/her family in a number of small black containers. As Leah searches through each box, particular items remind her of an event or encounter with her father and the lessons she learned from them and from him. Through Leah’s recollections, Major Walter Pritchard, USAF, emerges as a man of many talents and convictions.

And where the earth was soft for flowers we made

A grave for him that he might better rest.

From A Soldier’s Grave by Francis Edward Ledwidge (1887-1917)

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – The Notice

Chapter 2 – The Summary

Chapter 3 – The Burial

Chapter 4 – The Arrival

Chapter 5 – The Cap

Chapter 6 – The Musical Score

Chapter 7 – The Photograph

Chapter 8 – The Collar

Chapter 9 – The Portrait

Chapter 10 – The Report Card

Chapter 11 – The Valentine

Chapter 12 – The Books

Chapter 13 – The Baseball

Chapter 14 – The Journal

Chapter 15 – The Letter

Chapter 16 – The Last Box

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1 - The Notice

Leah knew what was coming as soon as she opened the door.

Two minutes before, she sat at the kitchen table noisily scooping the last mouthful of oatmeal from the bottom of the bowl—ready to rush off to swim practice at the Y. Like most week day mornings, her schedule was tight—the five o’clock alarm, a quick breakfast, an hour of practice, then the bus ride to school.

Her mother finished washing the dishes, wiped her hands and whirled halfway round to face Leah. Go round up your brother, will you? We’re going to be late again, her mother urged, emphasizing the last syllable.

As Leah headed up the stairs to fetch Noah—their perpetual lazybones—she thought she heard a knock at the front door. The unusual hour caused her to listen again. People did not call on their neighbors at 5:30 in the morning. Maybe Karla’s van was acting up again. Luckily, Leah was dressed in light jeans and running shoes in case Karla needed a push out of her driveway, as she had done twice in the last week. A second knock, louder this time, signaled her jog back down the stairs, hollering at Noah’s head to get a move on. Leah flung open the door with a smile, expecting Karla’s sheepish face.

The officer’s hand was extended, preparing to knock once more, his hat tucked tightly under one arm. Two men in blue Air Force uniform, one a chaplain, the other wearing the same gold-leaf insignia as her father’s, stood at attention. Solemnly, the young major asked if Mrs. Elise Pritchard was at home. Leah felt her throat tighten.

Y-y-yes sir, stammered Leah. My mother is. . . is. . . in the kitchen.

Turning from the doorway, Leah saw Noah and her mother enter the living room. Clyde, their aging Lab, lagged close behind. Leah registered the sudden alarm on their faces, the angle of Noah’s chin as he looked up at his mother, her hand coming to rest on his shoulder, Clyde’s ears askew—all frozen in time and place.

An instant’s hesitation marked her mother’s advance. Imperceptibly, Elise Pritchard lowered her head and took a small breath, seizing some measure of strength. She searched the taller officer’s face, her own drained of color, and stepped forward. I’m Elise Pritchard, Major Pritchard’s wife, she said. Please, come inside.

Thank you, ma’am. I’m Major Ronald Boyd, and this is Chaplain Emery Cole, he said soberly. He glanced at Leah and Noah and back at Leah’s mother. Would you like me to continue, ma’am? he asked, a note of concern in his voice.

Yes, the fresh widow whispered. We are here together.

Major Boyd began again, his eyes holding hers in gentle support. The Secretary of the Air Force has asked me to express his deep regret that your husband, Major Walter Pritchard, was killed in action in Afghanistan on October 7. He and several of his men were involved in a firefight in a small village near Kandahar. Major Pritchard was killed by enemy fire. The Secretary extends his deepest sympathy to you and your family in your tragic loss.

Leah stared at the officer’s black shoes, polished to a high gloss.

Chapter 2 - The Summary

The glass slipped from her mother’s hand, shattering when it struck the red tile. Leah jumped from her chair to grab the broom and pan, careful to avoid the scattered slivers. They sat in the kitchen surrounded by newspaper reports, working on the wording for the obituary notice. Stacks of family photos spilled over the table, Walt Pritchard’s handsome face among them. As if no one else were in the room, her mother whispered quietly, I love your face. Leah noticed she used the present tense—as if his face still existed in some part of the world. It was easier to believe it did.

Leah swept clean every corner of the room, watching in slow motion the glass drop and bounce repeatedly, the splintering sound replay itself, the liquid darken the tiles. She closed her eyes to lock out the deep red color beneath her feet, but she could not shut out the sound. She had to stop the sound before it became the frantic buzzing noise she heard at night as she lay in her bed—the noise that turned to gunfire, and the explosions that came after, all of it inside her head.

She needed to be calm. Yesterday, on her walk with Clyde around Providence Park, she could not rid herself of the sounds. Inside the park’s perimeter, she released Clyde from his leash so he could chase two squirrels among the trees. Stubbornly, he refused