Just sitting there listening to what they had to say and do made me want to take Eli's letters and throw them in a fire. I don't know how Candace survived them without hurting someone. By which I include hurting herself. Max would've kicked a wall or something, she's done it before and broke her foot.
Candace has had time to process and take a deep breath. Probably how she was able to keep her cool yesterday and not let on that she's hurting. But she needed to just let it out. This is one thing she can't turn to Sam with. As protective as he is of her, he still lets his parents get away with treating her like this.
My shoulder is still wet from her crying.
I had apologized again for not remembering that they fast during the new moon. Candace just said that yesterday was exactly what she needed. My Mom was a blessing, my parents were treasures, and that I should give them a hug every day. Candace admitted to me that while she was helping Mom in the kitchen alone, Mom somehow knew and gave her a long tight hug. Candace said she almost broke into tears right then and there.
They claimed the gun cabinet, which was fine. We still don't know what's in it, but knowing it's a gun cabinet is enough to make both of us nervous. Apparently Sam's Mom was condescending that Candace didn't know where the key was, never mind that she knows Candace has amnesia. Candace said she'd made a bee-line to the fridge and fished the key out from somewhere between it and the wall. After Sam got there, he'd brought a dolly to help move the thing. With some care, some effort, and a few squished fingers, we managed to get it into the garage. They'll pick it up later.
They wanted most of his stuff, which wasn't surprising. There was only one thing that stood out, and Candace had found it strange so she'd kept the item. It was a plaque that had been hidden in the closet behind the gun cabinet. We'd opened the closet to see what was in there, but we hadn't really gone through it. The parents did, and behind all Eli's uniforms was the plaque hung on the wall. Her in-laws reacted to the plaque with outrage and claimed it couldn't have been Eli's. It was some filthy pagan thing that must belong to Candace and was probably how she'd corrupted and tempted him.
Her father-in-law tore the plaque off the wall and threw it into the trash so hard he'd broke it. After they were gone, Candace took it out and kept it in her room. She said she hadn't even shown Sam, but she showed me. It was beautiful artwork, and had a symbol inlaid onto it. The back was wooden, and stained so dark it almost looked black. There were points of something I couldn't identify, they could be small gems, or bits of broken glass. They were inlaid all over to look like stars, around the central symbol. Dramatically waxing and waning crescent moons, each facing away from a full moon in the center, made up the central symbol. It was beautifully done, just not expensively done. Like I said, the gems that made up the star field were probably bits of broken glass. They were polished down and not sharp. The back was darkly stained wood. Only the inlaid symbol seemed in any way valuable, silver, though I suspect it was something else.
Candace was somewhat desperate to find something of hers in everything we'd been going through. She was hopeful that maybe this was, buoyed and horrified by her in-laws words and actions. If it was hers, or of her, it gave her hope that her and Eli did have something and she wasn't just stepping in to someone else's life. But to think that her in-laws despised it so, calling it pagan as though it were evil. And it was hidden away, there's no doubt about that. If it was of her, what does that say about her relationship with her late husband. Or was it hidden from her? There's just too many questions, and the only thing we could do was speculate. I tried to be comforting but this weighed on her mind, body, and soul.
So I suggested we ask Sam. Maybe he'd know something. It was the only thing we could do.
After a long day of packing and sorting into the boxes that Candace had ordered yesterday, Sam finally joined us. So we asked. Sam seemed as perplexed by the plaque as we were, he didn't know what to think of it. He asked if Candace wanted to keep it. She said she wasn't sure, but that it seemed wrong to leave it broken or to throw it out as worthless. So he offered to take it back to his shop and see about repairing it.
With all that we'd done prior, and spending most of the day on it today, we've gotten those rooms fairly well emptied out and cleaned up. The garage is full of boxes, and the mustang. I guess the in-laws were unhappy that Candace was not immediately willing to give them Eli's car and demanded an explanation. But she said they actually seemed sympathetic when she explained she wanted to offer it to Sam first. Sam was much more humble about receiving the mustang than his parents had been about anything at all. He was grateful, and sad, and said he knew it needed more work but that he'd fix it up proper and give us both a ride. Candace still didn't seem to understand, and she turned to me out of curiosity. Whatever grin I had on my face told her it was a good idea and that she needed to take him up on the offer.
There's not a whole lot else to say. Hal did get us to the gym this morning, and he brought us lunch. Since he had his lab, I got a ride home from Sam again, and as always he thanked me. I asked him if he was there when his parents had stopped by, he said he'd missed it. Based on what he told me, Candace didn't tell him everything. I decided I didn't want to interfere, so I didn't say anything.
As I was writing out the description of that plaque though, I got curious and did some searching for that symbol. I'm finding a few references for it, but it seems to be Greek in origin. Either a symbol of the fates, or a symbol of Nyx the goddess of night. Either way I have no way of knowing what it meant to Eli.
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