What We Leave on Doorsteps

“We didn’t just inherit guilt—we signed for it, stamped it, and left it on someone else’s porch.”

The truck's tyres hummed against the asphalt, a low and steady rhythm that threaded itself through the tension coiled inside me. The road snaked alongside the river in a silver shimmer of motion, its calm surface a taunting contrast to the churning within my chest. I gripped the steering wheel tighter, focusing on the hypnotic curve of the road ahead, trying to draw comfort from the illusion of forward momentum. Anything to keep me from dwelling too long on Leigh's message, and the gnawing implications it left in its wake.

Yet even as I tried to retreat into that fragile tranquillity, the ceaseless flicker of movement in my peripheral vision pulled me back to the present—Gladys’s hands. They twitched and fidgeted on her lap with frantic energy, tearing at invisible threads, picking at the corners of her sleeves, as though trying to unravel her nerves one fibre at a time. It was like a drip tap in a quiet room—unavoidable.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. The dam of my patience burst.

"Would you stop that already?" The sharpness in my voice startled even me, slicing through the heavy quiet that had settled between us.

"Sorry," Gladys murmured, her posture shrinking as though my words had deflated her. "I'm just a bit anxious."

"I know! I've been watching your hands fidget for the last ten minutes." My tone was clipped, my annoyance raw and poorly masked by the brittle edge of control I was desperately trying to maintain. It wasn’t just the hands—it was everything. The body. The lies. The unbearable wait for what came next.

Gladys sighed, her breath slow and weighty, like it had to push through a hundred emotions just to escape her chest. "Do you think it'll actually make any difference?"

My eyes flicked to her briefly before returning to the road. "What do you mean?" I asked, though a thread of dread already tugged at me.

"Well… I mean… If these people are finding their packages outside their front door, what are they going to tell the police?" Her voice was steadier now, as though she'd gathered courage from the rising clarity of her thoughts. "If nobody actually sees Joel, then there will be no evidence that he actually made the deliveries. So, really, this whole exercise doesn't get us in the clear at all."

Her words hit like a sudden dip in the road—a jolt to my already frayed composure.

"Huh?" I said dumbly, buying a few more seconds to let the implications settle.

"I mean," she continued, leaning forward slightly now, as though the truth was finally pressing out of her, "what’s to stop people from saying Joel never came? That the deliveries weren’t even real? We’re running ourselves ragged trying to patch together a timeline, but it’s all just... assumptions. There’s no proof we were here, no cameras, no faces seen, just boxes on porches."

Her logic was maddeningly sound. And the worst part was, I hadn’t even considered it.

My heart gave a quiet stutter, the sting of her observation a clear sign I couldn’t ignore. Is Gladys right? Is this actually helping us? The question echoed louder than I wanted to admit. We were fighting to maintain a narrative, scrambling to paste together a version of events that made sense—but to whom? The police? Ourselves?

And if all of this failed, what then? What came next?

"Hopefully it will keep them distracted," I said at last, the words brittle as glass. I knew how feeble it sounded, a half-truth barely dressed up as reassurance. But it was all I had. Keep them distracted long enough for what? I didn’t dare complete the thought.

Gladys nodded faintly, not fully convinced, but unwilling to push the point further. And so, the silence crept back in—thick, oppressive, and filled with the ghosts of decisions already made.

The truck continued to glide forward, a metal capsule of secrets and half-measures, rolling onward toward whatever came next.

---

As we approached our next destination, I eased off the accelerator and let the truck roll to a stop a good hundred metres away, mirroring the same cautious distance we’d kept back in New Norfolk. My hands lingered on the steering wheel, the leather cool and worn beneath my fingertips, grounding me in the here and now—though barely. The neat fronts of suburban houses lined the street ahead, each one an innocuous facade for the secrets we carried, and the danger we hoped to avoid.

"Can you do this one?" Gladys turned to me, her voice barely above a whisper, but saturated with that familiar tone—pleading, exhausted, already half-defeated. Her eyes searched mine for mercy, for an out, for a chance to pass the responsibility back.

"No," I replied. It came out more abruptly than I meant it to—too crisp, too final, like a door slamming shut. Her face twitched, stung. I exhaled and tried again, softening the blade of my refusal. "Look, all you have to do is leave it on their front doorstep and come straight back. I’ll be here waiting for you." My voice gentled, but the undercurrent of urgency remained. I couldn’t do it. Not this one. My legs felt like concrete, and my chest was a knot of nerves too tight to breathe through.

Without another word, Gladys threw open her door, the metal groaning with effort, and jumped down to the pavement with a jolt. The movement was clipped and angry, her frustration venting through action. "I still don’t think it’ll matter," she snapped, casting the words back over her shoulder like a challenge, her voice sharp with resignation.

"Hey," I called out instinctively. It wasn’t just the tone—I couldn’t let her walk away with that much defeat curling around her shoulders.

She looked back, her face pale but tight with seriousness. That pout she wore—it wasn’t childish. It was armour. A way to contain the fraying nerves and helplessness that clawed at both of us from the inside out.

"Either way, delivering these packages is better than us being stuck with them," I said, more gently this time. It was the only truth I could offer. If nothing else, unloading them kept our hands less full. Less culpable. Less visibly tied to the boy in the truck that wasn’t here anymore.

I tried to smile, though it felt more like a grimace, my lips twitching in a shape that barely resembled comfort. The expression hung between us like fogged glass—fragile, transparent, and quick to shatter.

And then she turned and made her way to the back of the truck,  while I watched, helpless behind the glass. We were too far in now to look back.