Scraps of Paper

by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

Chapter 2

  Abigail didn’t mind the packing. She moved herself, except for the heavy stuff, which she hired professional movers for. Emptying the apartment and throwing unneeded objects away from her past was the most fun she’d had in years. It was therapeutic. In the end, she had so little. Her personal items only took two trips in her car.

  The morning she moved into her house was a sultry hot Saturday. Martha showed up early with donuts from the town’s bakery. Earlier meetings between the two unattached lonely women had begun a friendship. Martha didn’t ask where Abigail’s family and friends were, she just pitched in and helped.

  When the mover’s truck drove away and the big items were all in place, Martha made Abigail take a break. They sat in the kitchen, in the rear of the house, drinking coffee, talking and looking out the bay window at the woods.

  “Tell me more about Spookie, Martha,” Abigail requested, as she stared out at the swaying trees and the turquoise sky.

  “Most of the folks keep to themselves. We have our share of odd birds. And the weather’s unpredictably bad, the mist gets so thick sometimes you can’t see an inch before your nose. Wait until you have to drive through that blanket one morning. You get up and want to go into the village and can’t for the fog. It’s worse in the fall and winter. Can’t see a thing.”

  “I don’t care. I love this place already. I like to walk and the town’s close.”

  Martha laughed and changed the subject. “I noticed those drawings and paintings you lugged in. You’re really good. That watercolor of the house was beautiful. I know you designed computer ads at a newspaper, did computer art, but do you ever sell anything of your own on commission?”

  “I used to.” Abigail was surprised, unsure how to answer. It’d been a long time since she’d thought of herself as a real artist and not just some hack typesetting newspaper ads, where speedy mediocrity was the desired result. “The truth is, I’ve been thinking about freelancing–to make money.”

  “Then I’ll be one of your first patrons. I’ve wanted a rendering of my home done for a long time. Think you could handle that?”

  “I could try.”

  After Martha left Abigail continued putting her house in order, her mind going often to what Martha had said about her drawings. The notion of making a living with her art no longer seemed so far-fetched. Living in Spookie was going to be inexpensive and in a small town where people loved their homes, their families and their pets…why couldn’t she sell them drawings of those things?

  That night she slept better than she had in years, her body tired and her mind untroubled. Outside in the summer woods night creatures stirred and hunted, mysteries whispered and the mist crept in with curling fingers.

  Abigail dreamed of her old life. She was at her job and outside the windows it was raining. She caught a glimpse of her dead husband, Joel, running through the drizzle and she bolted from the building to chase him, beg him to come home and love her again. Though his figure was in her eyesight the whole pursuit she could never catch him. He’d glance back at her, smile, and then run on. She woke up crying. It wasn’t the first time she’d dreamed that dream. She’d thought with his death they’d stop, but apparently not.

  She got out of bed and made coffee. The light of day and the reality of where she was reclaimed her contentment. Most of the house was in order and only a pile of boxes stashed in the basement was left to unpack. Taking her cup of coffee and a left over donut onto the front porch, she sat in the swing to admire her house and her yard. There wasn’t much of a yard. It merged into woodland a short distance beyond the house. But where there was yard, there were flowers and bushes. The elderly woman who’d lived there must have loved her home. She must have planted a lot before she got too sick. Abigail started smiling and couldn’t stop.

  Now this, Abigail gloated, is all mine.

  Today she would go into town and buy groceries, wallpaper and paint. Then she’d paint one room after another in bright cheery colors and wallpaper the kitchen. She hadn’t done that sort of thing in a while, but she was sure she could handle the job. She ached to give the neglected house a makeover so it would feel as good as she was feeling. So Joel and her had never built their dream house out in the woods, it didn’t mean she couldn’t have that dream now. She was going to make her house beautiful, fill it with exquisite things and she was going to be happy in it.

  Dressed in blue jeans and a yellow flowered T-shirt, which brought out the green in her eyes, she tied her hair on top of her head and put sandals on. Grabbing her purse and her list, she drove the short distance into town. If she hadn’t so many supplies to buy she would have walked because it was a lovely day.

  Martha had mentioned some of the stores were open half a day on Sundays, but the hardware store was practically empty. The owner, a short man with sharp eyes and a bald spot surrounded in tufts of wild hair, came up to her. “So, I hear you’ve bought the old Summers’ place?” being the first words out of his mouth. News spread fast in a small town. His tan apron clanked and clinked when he moved, his pockets bulging.

  “I have. And I need cans of paint, rolls of wallpaper, brushes, rollers, drop cloths and instruction pamphlets so I’ll know what I’m doing.”

  As they gathered the materials she’d need for the job, he explained their uses and gave her shortcuts to make the work easier.

  “This pre-pasted wallpaper is great. You start at the top and smooth it down towards the bottom. Use masking tape to line out your painting and add a few drops of vanilla extract to the paint. It’ll help get rid of the paint smell,” the owner advised her.

  Between the instructions he threw in juicy tidbits about her new house’s history or the town’s. He’d owned the hardware store, Nails and Bolts, for fifteen years, had a wife named Alma and five kids. “That Edna was an awful recluse,” he told her. “Even when she was healthy she rarely came into town.”

  “She was alone,” Abigail reminded him, finding she was curious about the woman who’d lived in her house. “Maybe she missed her family more than people thought. Her sister and her sister’s kids?”

  “That was so long ago. Edna never spoke about them, or any of that, not even after the three left, from what I’ve been told. Me, I say Edna didn’t care. Never did. She was a cold fish all right. I was a kid back then, but I remember people talking. Some thought they just up and left. Simple as that. Some people believed they…disappeared. The sheriff at that time, for some reason, didn’t follow up on their leaving. He said there was no reason. But this one cop, don’t remember who anymore, looked everywhere for weeks, but he never found where the three went.”

  “Edna didn’t have any other family?”

  “No, she was a spinster. She didn’t have any education or money. All in all she had a terribly hard life. She worked in a clothing factory somewhere over in Chalmers, which is two towns over, when she was younger until she inherited that house. No one knew where she got her money after that. She never went back to work. She was a weird old thing. Kept to herself, except for some community service woman who’d come out to the house and clean, fix her meals, or sometimes go into town for her prescriptions. Edna hadn’t driven for years; didn’t have a car I ever knew of.

  “You should ask John Mason next door about Edna. He’s been around longer and knew her better. He knows more about the town too. The General Store’s been here forever. I think he took it over from the last owner about the time Edna settled into her house. Ask him.”

  Abigail thanked the man for his help and loaded her cans of paint and rolls of wallpaper, a pretty pattern with muted sunflowers sprinkled through it, into the trunk of her car. It’d transform her kitchen into a field of flowers if she could pull it off. Pre-pasted or not, getting the wallpaper up wouldn’t be easy.

  She entered Mason’s General Store and filled a plastic basket full of supplies. She needed all the basics. The man smiled again at her as she shopped, not taking his eyes off her for a second. Martha had mentioned he w
as divorced and lonely.

  If she hadn’t known better she would have said Mason was flirting with her–at his age. He wasn’t bad looking, she thought, tall and thin with gray stylishly cut hair and icy blue eyes, his clothes neat and every hair in place. An expensive watch and diamond rings gleamed on his wrist and fingers. He had money and liked to show it. Must have been a real heartbreaker once. But not her type. Too old. Too attentive. She hadn’t taken the gold ring on her left hand off and she made sure it was visible. A month knowing her husband was dead, even after years missing, wasn’t long enough. Abigail still felt married.

  When she checked out she tried to talk to Mr. Mason about the previous owners of her house. “The guy next door says you knew Edna Summers fairly well? I bought her house, you know, so I’m curious about her,” she made conversation.

  “Sure, I knew Edna Summers,” he replied, his smile gone. “Poor old Edna. Batty, selfish as they come; friendless and alone to the end. I hope you’re happier in that house than she was. It needs a lot of work. She never took care of it.”

  She got right to it. “I heard three people drove away from that house thirty years ago and never came back, you know anything about that? The hardware store owner said you might have been in town during those years.”

  He hesitated. “No, that was before my time, I’m afraid. Oh, I’ve heard the stories, but it’s all ancient history. I didn’t know them, sorry.” John Mason’s manner was brusque as he packed her purchases in bags. “Anyway, I barely remember what went on in this town last year, much less thirty years past.” He gave her an apologetic smile. Maybe he didn’t like dredging up old news especially news that reflected badly on the town or maybe old gossip just didn’t interest him.

  She pulled the bags into her arms. Mason was staring at her again. A soft smile playing on his lips. Oh boy, she thought as she said goodbye and left the store. Next thing I know he’ll be asking me out. He had that look in his eyes. Run, Abby, run.

  Back at her house she unloaded the car and put the groceries away, made herself a sandwich and slipped into her painting clothes, humming cheerfully all the while. She cranked up the volume of her kitchen radio, set at an oldie’s station, and began working. Even the weather was cooperating, not as warm as the days before, in the eighties with a cool northern wind. She’d propped open all the windows with sticks because they were timeworn and wondered how she’d get them fixed. In time, she told herself.

  Abigail worked until after eleven that night and had to practically crawl upstairs to bed she ached so. It’d been a long time since she’d done so much physical labor. Yet she was pleased with what she’d accomplished, having wallpapered the kitchen and started painting one of the rooms. The following two days she painted the living room a delicate salmon color and the next day she did the bathroom in a bright white. She painted her loft bedroom a gorgeous shade of mint green on the fifth day and the day after she painted the hallway a pale yellow. Then she finished up odds and ends on the bottom floor; cleaned and straightened, hung pictures and put out knick knacks.

  On the morning of the seventh day, a Saturday, she limped through her home. There wasn’t one muscle in her body which wasn’t tired and sore, but she didn’t care. She was so happy with the results of her labor. The house looked so different and so pretty. The vanilla had done the trick and there was barely any paint smell. The sunflower wallpaper was perfect. She’d hung art on the walls in strategic places but left spaces for the pictures she’d create herself. She wanted some of her own work in her home.

  There was a rear hallway with an exit door connecting the kitchen and living room which had two large windows facing the back yard; it gave the area a great deal of light. It wasn’t a large space, but Abigail imagined it would be perfect as an art studio. An easel could go in front of the windows and shelves for her art supplies could go along the rear wall. No need to waste space. Because of all the different room colors, to pull them together and cover the worn wood, she’d paint the baseboards and doorframes a glossy white throughout the lower level. Then add multicolored area rugs in the front room and bedroom and the house would look almost done.

  While cleaning the baseboard in the living room, she noticed it was loose and had the hammer in her hand ready to nail it down again when she spied a scrap of paper sticking out from behind the piece of wood.

  Such a simple act, yanking at that slip of paper, but it would change everything. Pulling it carefully from its hiding place, she saw it was a tightly folded and yellowed scrap of white paper laced in spider webs and dust. It was the sort of drawing paper she used to sketch on as a child. She unfolded it slowly. There was printing on it, bright red crayon scribbling as a child might do. At first Abigail wasn’t sure what it was. Then she looked closer and read:

  ME AND CHRIS ARE SO SCARED. HE WAS MEAN TO MOMMY AGAIN, MADE HER CRY. HURT HER. WE HATE HIM!!! in a childish scrawl. There was a J at the bottom.

  She stared at the scrap of paper and reread it. It was obviously old. No telling how long it’d been behind the baseboard. She refolded it and tucked it into a compartment of her purse. The two children’s names who’d once lived there, if she recalled correctly, had been Christopher and…Jenny. Amazing, the note could have been from them. How strange, after all these years, for her to find it. But who was HE?

  Abigail couldn’t stop dwelling on the note as she resumed her work. She made it a point to search for other scraps of paper sticking out from hidden places. A treasure hunt. By the early evening, when she had to quit painting for the day because her body refused to move, she’d uncovered yet another scrawled note in red crayon, all caps, similar to the first one from under the baseboards.

  It said: WE WENT TO BED AGAIN WITHOUT SUPPER. SHE WAS MAD. I AM SO HUNGRY. C

  Was it from Christopher? She put the note in her purse with the other one. She was trying not to feel sorry for the mistreated children. After all it had been so long ago. But she couldn’t stop thinking about them and what those notes meant. Had they been abused and in danger? From whom? And why should it bother her so?

  She’d been working for days and needed a change, she needed people, wanted to hear human conversation and eat someone else’s cooking. Cleaning up, she walked into town to Stella’s Diner. It was a warm June afternoon, the sun low in the sky and the crickets in melodious voice as she strolled down the road admiring the wildflowers and the loveliness of the woods. Walking helped ease the soreness in her body and fresh air cleared the dust and paint fumes from her lungs.

  A tiny woman with silver permed hair and a wrinkled body in a tattered dress was shuffling down the town’s sidewalk pulling a rickety wagon of junk. As she passed Abigail she mumbled something, not looking up, and yanked her wagon along behind her on down the street. The woman had to be at least eighty years old and she probably wasn’t in her right mind. But she made Abigail grin. Every town had their bag lady, or in this case, wagon lady. The woman moved down the road and around a corner, singing an old Perry Como song, something about catching a falling star, loud enough to make an alley cat jealous.

  Fifteen minutes from her front door, Abigail arrived at Stella’s. Apparently the diner was the social gathering water hole for the town. It was packed, she could tell from outside the windows. People inside were laughing, talking and eating.

  She took a deep breath and strode in.