Lost and Found - Chapters 7 through 9
Lost and Found - Chapters 7 through 9
Chapter 7
The next morning it was difficult to want to get out of bed. The last note from Ellie hit a tender nerve. She didn’t feel that way towards her mom, but she understood regret, to feel robbed of time that you needed to clear the air.. maybe reading a note would help her sluggish mood.
She reached over. She passed up Ellie’s handwritten notes. She felt the need to read something different.
“I took a sabbatical. The Principal wasn’t happy that I did it in the middle of the school year. Sometimes we get a good crop of students and then there are years that you think teaching is a form of cruel punishment. This is one of those years. I made the simple mistake of pronouncing “hour” like “our.” The kids howled with laughter, like it was the best thing in the word to catch a teacher make a mistake. I’m human too. Were kids always this mean or is this a generational issue? Ever since then, I get cold chills and cold feet whenever I have to get on stage or make a speech in front of the kids. I don’t know if I’m cut out for the job.”
A few notes later, she found another one in the same handwriting:
“I feel so much better. I no longer dread speaking in front of the kids any more. I don’t even mind the idea that they might laugh at me. I’m leaving tomorrow, to return to real life... I just don’t remember why I wanted to be a teacher.”
That last note gave her a good nudge that it was time to get up and face the world. She could do this.
She was also in a better frame of mind to read one, just one of Ellie’s notes.
“Billy said that I’m smiling more now. I don’t remember why I wouldn’t smile, but it’s nice that he is happy about me being happy.”
She took a deep breath, “Oh, that makes me happy for you too, Ellie.”
With good walking shoes, she decided to explore away from the apartment building. About two miles away, she saw an old-fashioned diner. It was adorably quaint, that was the best way she could describe it.
There was a long, stainless-steel counter, lined with padded, swivel stools. You could watch the cooks at work and hear the clatter of spatulas. Along the windows, there were cozy, retro booths upholstered in bright turquoise vinyl. There was even a mini-jukebox, but nothing played.
She slipped into the booth and watched as two kids spun the swivel chairs around and around. “Anna would be sitting right there, doing the same thing, until she made herself dizzy and sick.”
She heard the waitress call out, “Ben, ya want the same order, right? Dan boy, we need Two on a raft, wreck ‘em!”
Ben called back, “Good to go to a place where you don’t have to think about the food!”
The waitress arrived at my table, saw my expression, laughed and said, “He ordered two fried eggs on toast, scrambled. What would you like, Missy?”
She placed an order for a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich on toast, no onions. The waitress made her laugh, “B.E.C. on a shingle, hold the crybaby!”
She reached for her notebook, loving the verbiage for breakfast, but realized she left it at the apartment. She was so used to the paper in the desk that she no longer felt the need for the notebook.
The people behind her received their order and started talking. It’s not that she was eavesdropping, she couldn’t not hear them where she sat.
“People don’t stay there long.” One lady said.
“That’s not true,” replied a man.
“Name one who’s been at Hawthorne more than a year.”
Her back straightened, but no more was said as they started enjoying their meal. “It’s not like I was planning on staying long either, though I’ve been there... I can’t recall how long it has been. It feels like time is different at Hawthorne.”
The waitress came over with her order and she quickly asked, “Do you have internet connection here? I was trying to access a message on my phone, but I can’t seem to get connection.”
“Oh” she laughed, “Not out here, that new fangled stuff won’t work. We keep it simple.”
Her shoulders slumped forward. Her heart ached to hear the message again.
“Figures..” she muttered. The food was excellent though.
It was a warm morning and a longer walk back home. She sat at the desk and touched her forehead to the wood. It was nice and cool. Absentminded to her actions, she opened the drawer and pulled out the paper and pen.
At the top, were the words, “What did Anna fear the most?”
She wrote simply, “Loneliness.” Only she wasn’t sure if it was her or Anna that feared it the most. She gently closed the drawer. No click, no other notes.
Her landlord knocked on the door. She dragged herself from the desk and he walked in. “Plumbing issues in the apartment next to you. Need to make sure it didn’t leak into the bathroom in here.” He walked over, glancing at the desk.
When he came back he told her, “Have you told it any names?”
She froze, “What?”
He looked concerned, “Names. Family.”
She replied, “Just my sister. But I didn’t give it.”
The color drained from his face. “I should have told you sooner.” “I was afraid you’d think I was crazy. I’m sorry.” “If it asks for another name, don’t give it.” He brushed by her and closed the door.
“Too late,” she called after him, feeling as though it was something she said recently, like a deja vu moment. She didn’t have the energy to follow him with questions. She wanted sleep. She closed the heavy curtain, thankful that it blocked out the noon sun and pulled the covers over her eyes.
Chapter 8
The same evening saw her back in the courtyard where she met a stray cat and called, “Here kitty, kitty. Come on, George, don’t be shy.” She stopped herself, “Why did I call it George? That’s so odd.” A black butterfly landed on her hand and she had a flash of her sister calling a cat that. How funny she thought!
Her foot tripped over a loose rock in the path. She bent down to rub her ankle and saw the yellowed paper, tucked under the rock. Without reading it, she knew who wrote it. “Are you following me, Ellie?” She said half-heartedly. The note read, “Billy is concerned. He said I’m not my normal self. That I’m forgetting things. He asked me what mom’s favorite flower was. I didn’t care. He cried today. I don’t know why. Thoughts about her don’t bother me any more.” Another note was under the same rock, same handwriting, “He said Mother loved to sing. I can’t remember her voice.”
She caught her breath in a hiccup. “I miss Anna’s voice too.” Tears welled up, but she brushed them away. This afternoon she had her notebook. She turned the pages to find things she had forgotten:
“Anna used to leave notes in library books. Not mean notes. Silly notes.
Once I opened a mystery novel and found a scrap of paper that said:
“The butler didn’t do it. Probably.”
Another time one said:
“If you are reading this while eating crackers, check your shirt.”
She thought she was hilarious. The worst part is that sometimes she was.”
She took a deep breath in, as if breathing in the memory, back into her mind. That deep breath felt rejuvenating.
After considering writing in her notebook and not feeling up to doing so, she took out the last three unread notes in her pocket. None from Ellie:
“I was frustrated. I painted the same rose twelve times. Twelve. It was never right, petals too large, too many petals, too perfect petals, too droopy petals. I tried too many complicated possibilities and now I despise roses!”
On the other side of the note, “The rose no longer bothers me. I finished the painting, then I threw it away. I can’t remember why it even mattered that much.”
“That’s extreme, to throw it away,” she thought, “But then, I’m not an artist. So I don’t understand the depth of the emotions that goes into a painting. At least she did finish it.”
The next note:
“Ellie smiled all day. It was awesome. But she said something odd, She couldn’t remember Mother’s face. I told her that it might be post-traumatic stress disorder and should speak to someone, but she brushed me off. She said she felt better than she had ever. I should be grateful, but I’m worried.”
“Wait..? What? When did Billy start writing too?” she gasped.
The second note:
“She forgot the peach story again. The one we laughed so hard we cried. She forgot Mother’s favorite flower, Camellia blooms. She saw I was upset that she forgot. How could she? Mother planted them all around the house. She cried, because she couldn’t remember. She was doing so well and truly happy after writing. Maybe if I write too, that will encourage her and be happy again.”
On the back on the note, he scrawled, “I gave her the photograph of us. She forgot where we took the picture and why it was so funny. I cried.”
She went back to the desk. The drawer was already open with a page and pen ready and question already in place, “What happened when you last saw Anna?”
She shook her head, “No, no, no.” She simply wrote, “Will this stop hurting?” A word under her sentence appeared, “Yes.”
Chapter 9
She felt like emotions were being pulled from her, almost demanding that they shake free. She wasn’t ready. She had to, needed to hear the recording. But darn it, she couldn’t access her phone. Just one more time, she had to hear her, before she could tell that final story. Nobody understood this.
She leaned over and picked up the notebook.. flipped through the pages and realized they were all about joyful memories with Anna. And, she realized she hadn’t written in her notebook in a long time. The desk pages had replaced her notebook and that was unheard of behavior. Even her best friend said her notebook was her security blanket.
“Ellie had her own desk, probably just like this one.” She ran her hand over the dark desk in a gentle manner. “She sat down and shared her happy memories and her painful ones. I don’t know if she was writing to release or writing to share to help others or both. I think I do both as well.”
There were no new notes waiting for her, but then again, she didn’t share much either on the last note. She just couldn’t. Instead, she took out the notes she had from her pocket and the ones she kept in her notebook.
She spread them out and separated Ellie’s and Billy’s from the stack. It wasn’t that they were better, but she had developed an appreciation and feeling of kinship for their sibling relationship.
Her attempt at a chronological order of their stories was almost laughable, but she came close. Only, she felt like there was a gap somewhere. She reread Billy’s notes. “She forgot the peaches story he said. But she wrote about it. She didn’t forget about it. I don’t understand.”
“He was upset that she forgot things about their mother, but she wrote so earnestly, so heart felt. I know that was real. I know she remembered.”
She shifted the pages of Ellie and then lined Billy’s to the side. She softly said, “Billy never said when she changed. He only notices afterwards. After she writes.” She leaned over at the drawer she put the last note, “What happened when you last saw Anna?”
“Was this the question? Was this the one Ellie answered about her mother?”
She took out the other notes, started to slowly read them... the people wrote how they felt, then felt better, but something about the feeling better left a sense of dread in her now. She chided herself, “I’m thinking about this too much.”
She grabbed the notes and her notebook and shoved hard away from the desk.
She went to the window, a black butterfly landed on her shoulder. It felt like a shadow touching her. She opened the window and as the butterfly flew into the night sky, envy coiled tight in her stomach, a bitter contrast to the creature’s effortless escape.
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