3 The Second Day

Read Erin's first person blog. First meeting Leonard-Connection in the Clutter.

Leonard wasn’t sure why he’d agreed to a second cleaning session with Erin. Maybe it was the guilt of how much he and his friend had let the house fall apart before his death. Every day had been a new project, a new distraction. They lost themselves in it, and before Leonard knew it, years had passed without a single purge. The clutter had grown alongside the unspoken grief they both carried.

Erin’s first cleaning session had left him lighter, but also unsettled. She’d written about him in her blog not long after leaving. He’d read it, recognizing himself in her words, but also spotting the places where her perspective skewed.

The Roomba, for instance. It wasn’t named Wilson, as she thought. When Leonard had mentioned it in passing, he’d said it was Wilson’s—his friend’s. But now he debated calling it Wilson, as a quiet way to honor his friend’s memory.

“Wilson,” Leonard muttered as he stood in the RV, waiting for Erin to arrive. “You’d probably find this all hilarious.”

The turkey, as if summoned, strutted into the RV with a paper dangling from his beak. Leonard groaned. “Not again.”

He snatched the paper, only for his annoyance to dissolve into silence. It was another version of his suicide note. One he thought he’d thrown away weeks ago. Turkules gobbled, unfazed, and dropped another paper onto the counter before hopping into his usual spot on the passenger seat.

“Good job, buddy,” Leonard muttered. “You’re like a depressing filing system with feathers.”

Erin arrived early, her usual brisk demeanor softened by a quick smile. She carried two vacuums, cleaning supplies, and an air of quiet determination.

“Back for more punishment?” Leonard asked as she stepped inside.

“Back for round two,” she corrected. “And I’m not the one being punished here.”

In her blog, Erin had described Leonard as humming to himself as he left the RV. He wasn’t humming. He’d been muttering to Turkules, who was sitting in the passenger seat, glaring at him for leaving the door open.

He decided to clear the air. “I wasn’t humming, by the way. I was talking to Turkules.”

“Turkules?” Erin asked, her brow furrowing. “Is that another project you’re working on?”

Leonard hesitated just long enough to make it awkward. “No. It’s my turkey.”

Erin blinked. “Your… what?”

“My turkey,” Leonard said, deadpan. “He’s out in the RV. Does quality control on my paperwork. Very efficient. A little rude.”

Erin stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. “I thought it was a metaphor or a weird story you were working on. You actually have a turkey?”

“Follow me. I’m weird, not crazy.”

They walked out to the RV, where Turkules was picking up a piece of paper. The turkey paused when he saw Erin, tilted his head, and then marched over to her with the paper dangling from his beak. Erin laughed nervously, took the paper, and glanced down.

It was the suicide note.

She handed it to Leonard without a word. He chuckled nervously, pocketing it. “Not exactly what it might have looked like,” he said.

Erin didn’t respond, her expression unreadable.

“It started as a goodbye,” Leonard continued, feeling the need to explain. “Then it became a disorganized will. Then a grocery list for project supplies. By the seventh draft, even the note gave up on me. It fell into the trash can. Dramatically.”

Erin chuckled softly but didn’t interrupt.

“Funny thing about notes like this,” Leonard said. “You think they’re an ending, but they turn into something else. A grocery list, a to-do list, a… reminder, maybe. There are always things you’re not ready to leave behind. You realize that the things you thought mattered don’t. And the things you thought didn’t matter… well, they’re all you’ve got.”

As they worked, Leonard found himself talking more openly than he’d intended. Erin had a way of listening without prying, which he appreciated.

“She thinks I’m just some old weirdo,” Leonard said, half-smiling as he told her about the anonymous emails he’d sent Lucy. “She’s not wrong, but I’d like her to know I’m her old weirdo.”

Erin smiled. “Then tell her. You don’t have to give her the whole story—just enough to let her decide what to do with it. You can’t control how she’ll react. All you can do is be honest.”

Leonard nodded slowly. “Yeah. Maybe it’s time.”

By the time Erin left, the house was cleaner, but Leonard felt lighter in a way that had nothing to do with the clutter. He watched her go, then turned back to Turkules, who was now perched triumphantly on the desk.

“You think I should tell her?” Leonard asked.

Turkules didn’t respond, but he did snatch the note out of Leonard’s hand and drop it on the counter.

“Yeah,” Leonard said with a sigh. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

As Leonard sat in the RV later that night, the note still resting on the counter, he thought about Erin’s words, Turkules’ strange timing, and the stories he’d listened to on the tapes.

Maybe goodbye notes weren’t meant to end things. Maybe they were a way of passing something forward.

We spend our lives spilling parts of ourselves into others—our stories, our jokes, our fears, our dreams. Those pieces become part of their story, and when we’re gone, those fragments live on in the lives we’ve touched.

Leonard looked at Turkules, now asleep on the passenger seat, and smiled. Maybe, instead of an ending, his story was just finding new voices.

Read Erin's first person blog. First meeting Leonard-Connection in the Clutter.