Letters From Rachel

by N L Westaway

  Notre Dame of Maryland University offered Maryland’s only women’s college, as well as certificate, undergraduate, graduate, and PhD programs for both women and men. The course handout had boasted that for 125 years, Their approach to education has prepared thousands of high performers and instigators of social change, and that they were consistently responsive to the needs of a student body hungry to learn, and a world hungry for knowledgeable compassionate leaders. That, They embodied pioneering educational tradition and a social justice mission that spurred the College of Notre Dame to welcome the first class of women pursuing a four-year baccalaureate degree in 1895, and Their transformative educational model will help prepare you for leadership and success. She had been nervous about taking classes, but after reading the pamphlet, she had thought, how could she go wrong?

  Laura had loved the class and the instructor, but on the regular night she attended the college, she had noticed students coming and going from an office with the placard labeled Professor of International Business. It wasn’t the students coming and going that had bothered her, it was the fact that it had been a different female student each time, that they had always appeared to be flustered, fixing their clothing, adjusting their skirts or hair or whatever.

  In April, the same week as Gwen’s 5th birthday, on the last day of Laura’s course, she’d chosen to turn left this time to take the exit nearest the professor’s office, rather than turn right for her regular route out of the building. She understood it was none of her business, but it was obvious to her what had been going on in that office all those other nights. And as she approached, like clockwork, the door to the office had opened and another girl had exited. But this time along with the rearranging of clothes, this girl had been crying. The girl took off quickly when she’d seen Laura approaching, but it had given Laura just enough time before the door shut, to see into the office, see the professor behind his desk, and see him buckling and then zipping up his pants. That poor girl—those poor girls, had been Laura’s thoughts as she had hurried out the unfamiliar exit.

  She had felt anger for the girls and at seeing the man, but what she’d felt most was guilt over not having done something when she knew what was going on in there. Not that she had proof, it was just her gut and the fact that she had seen him adjusting his own clothes, as the girls had done. Without any corroborating statements, what did she really have? Nothing.

  She had seen the professor, but he had not seen her, she was sure of it, but on the walk home, she’d had the unnerving sense that someone was watching her, following her. At home, she had thanked her babysitter/landlord, then had locked up as she normally did. But in the morning, as she had opened the door for Gwen to leave, she’d been alarmed to find it unlocked. She’d had a restless sleep and figured she would have heard someone come in if that were the case, but then she’d also been positive she had locked and latched the door.

  At work, she’d been surprised to find a little celebration set up for her in the back bakery area, the owners had put up a small banner with the words Congratulations on it, and blew plastic horns and had applauded her for completing her course, then they’d announced they were making her manager and giving her a raise to boot.

  She had been so appreciative for everything they’d done for her that the unease she’d felt earlier had begun to dissipate, but it had swiftly returned when she’d been out back writing up orders for supplies and had heard the radio spew out the morning news, “The Professor of International Business, at the renowned Notre Dame of Maryland University, was found dead this morning.”

  She had expected to see a new postcard that week, but by the end of April and on into June, Laura had still not received one. She had wanted so badly to stay; she had a great job, a comfortable home, and even Gwen had been doing well with attending school in junior kindergarten. Had she gotten too comfortable and left the door unlocked, she wondered? She hadn’t been keeping up with her usual surveillance of her surroundings, but with work, school and Gwen, she’d been too exhausted to perform her usual list of keep-safe tasks.

  Come the end of June, she had been full on back to her compulsive checking of the security hardware she had put in place, and making mental notes on any new people she saw at the bakery or near the house.

  Two years past, and there had been no other murders reported, and little news about the serial killer, other than a short broadcast on how it had been two years now since the last killing, yet Laura had still kept up with her safety routine. Gwen had become less and less impressed with the restrictions Laura had imposed on her, but shortly after Gwen’s 7th birthday, when fatefully another postcard arrived, it was clear to Laura by the message, that the time had come again to move.

  The message read,

  You have overstayed your welcome, Laura.

  I killed that professor for you, yet you stayed this time.

  You’ve gotten too comfortable now, and if you contact the police, you and your daughter will NOT live to regret it.

  Don’t ever forget, I’m watching you both.

  It’s time for you to leave.

  Laura had their escape packing down to a science, along with all her regular safety tasks she’d been doing over the past year, and this time she had been even better prepared for this inevitable move.

  She had gotten letters of reference from her bosses and one from her landlord in advance, just in case, plus she had her college certificate for the business course she’d taken, and she’d had a story prepared for her landlord and her bosses at the bakery. She had written them both letters stating that she had been urgently requested back to her hometown to attend to her ailing parents. In the letters, she’d also expressed her sincere regret for leaving them so suddenly, which was painfully truer than her story she’d given for leaving them.

  Laura had their belongings packed and hadn’t hesitated to move again, and that’s how they’d ended up in Charlottesville, Virginia. And though it had been six years and six moves since Laura started this trek across the country, aiming to escape the obsessive eyes of this serial killer, her time in Charlottesville had proven beneficial. As a result of Laura’s extensive involvement in the family-built chain-bakery, two weeks ago she’d been asked to go work for another family member, to help them get a new location up and running, in North Carolina. And for the first time, Laura would be moving for the right reason, opportunity, and not out of fear.

  Chapter 6

  Monday, July 8, 2019 – Royal Oak, MI

  Gwen and Scott live in an eight-unit, three floor walk-up apartment building built in 1920. It was old for sure, but it had lots of charm and it was close to everything they needed.

  Scott had told Gwen about the vacant apartment when she had first been looking during her school orientation week. She had been bunking with a house full of girls in a sublet for about a month when Scott had seen her scanning the rental board in the student support area on campus. The girls had been nice, but it just wasn’t the environment for her, and she’d been searching for a small space of her own. She hadn’t been looking for luxury, not with her savings and having to work part-time, but with Scott’s help, she’d landed the cute studio which was about 650 sq. ft. with the kitchen and bathroom on one side and the living room space with a large window that started at about waist-height on the far wall. Gwen had had to set up her television in front of the window partially blocking the view out. Her three-seater pull-out-bed couch divided the kitchen and living room facing the television and window. The door into the apartment was on the right in the center of the wall and next to the kitchen space. And along the left-hand-side wall of the small space was a series of built-in closets for clothing and storage. It was an efficient space and exactly what Gwen had needed. Any more space would have been a waste in her mind. Scott’s place, a one-bedroom, on the same floor as Gwen’s, wasn’t much bigger at 810 sq. ft., and the building was only a 6-minute walk to the train station and a 2-minute walk to the coffee shop.r />
  She and Scott worked most shifts together, which was great for Gwen since she could hitch a ride with him, but for anything else, like going to see her mother or heading anywhere for that matter, it was the people mover Amtrak that she would have to take. It was about an hour train ride to get to Gwen’s mother’s place, and she knew she should visit more but things had been super busy with her last month of training.

  “What’s with the paper flowers?” Scott asked, sitting down on the couch, examining the colourful homemade floral arrangement on Gwen’s side table next to the couch. He was wearing his usual gym-gear and been heading to the gym clearly, but he had popped over for a quick visit this morning and had proceeded to eat half the toast she’d made for herself.

  Gwen crossed from the living rooms space to the kitchen to put her breakfast dishes in the sick. “Long story short, we moved a lot when I was a kid and my mother used to get me one of those pads with the multi-coloured construction papers in it, and we’d make a paper garden on the wall of my bedroom. We never really had any art on the walls other than the cheap pieces that came as part of the furnished apartments we had lived in. It was the same with Christmas and Halloween, we made homemade decorations out of paper. When you moved as much as we did, hauling holiday decorations from place to place just wasn’t doable. Other than those holidays, we never really celebrated much else with just the two of us.” She sipped the last of her already cold coffee.

  “What about birthdays?” he asked, trying to arrange the paper flowers, and failing.

  “Oh, birthdays were different. My mother and I share the same birthday month just a week apart, so we always did something special. We still made homemade party hats, but she would get balloons and streamers from one of those stores where everything is a buck or less. Money was tight, but she made it special. She said that birthdays weren’t a big thing when she was growing up, so she wanted me to remember mine as wonderful times in my life.” Gwen felt a small pull of a smile at the corner of her mouth, as a few of those memories circled her thoughts.

  “Well, I bet you had some amazing cakes, with her being a baker and all,” Scott said, standing and giving his stomach a rub.

  “Ha, ya, well… I’m not much into sweets, so cake wasn’t big on my list of birthday wants.”

  “No cake—are you insane?” Scott said, chuckling and shaking his head.

  “Don’t forget I worked at the bakery weekends all through high school. My favorite thing was the jalapeno cheddar bread—still is, never any of the pastries. That made into a grilled cheese paired with a homemade tomato soup—is the best thing ever. My mother always keeps a couple loaves in the freezers for just such an occasion.”

  “Man, that sounds excellent. Maybe I should go visit your mom for you.” He passed a hand across the back of his neck and strode into the small kitchen space.

  “Wait, I lied. The only sweets I will eat are the chocolate chip cookies she makes—she uses M&Ms instead of chips. She keeps those in the freezer too. You can nuke them in the microwave, and they come out all warm and chewy.” She took in a breath through her nose at the scented memory of it.

  “Yer killing me, here, Gwen.” He rubbed his stomach again and then opened her fridge.

  She laughed. “I have to go visit Mom today, told her I’d be over for lunch. I’ll try to remember to bring some cookies home with me. I’m the only one who eats them, so she won’t mind,” she said, zipping up her knapsack.

  “It’s about time you went to see her,” he said, shutting the door then.

  “I know-I know. She’s been bugging me to go visit. Plus, I want to go through this old trunk she has. I haven’t rifled through it in years, not since we first moved to Ann Arbor. From what I remember, Mom had a bunch of old textbooks, so maybe she has a yearbook or two.”

  “I’m heading out—need a ride to the station?” Scott said, as he headed for the door to her apartment.

  “Sure—I’ll take it,” Gwen said, despite it only being a short walk. She grabbed up her knapsack then and following him to the door.

  An hour later, the train from Royal Oak was pulling into the Ann Arbor station, and from there it was also just a short walk to her mother’s place.

  At the front door to the garden home, Gwen gave the door the special it’s me Gwen knock to let her Mom know she was here, then she unlocked the door with her key. It had been a security habit they had created for themselves, and well, old habits die hard.

  “Hello, Dolly!” she heard her mother call out. Her mother had named her after a Canadian author, Gwendolyn MacEwen. She had told Gwen that the first name had stuck with her after reading one of the poems written by the author about childhood. But the nickname, Dolly, had been one of those stranger danger—secret code things they had developed, and an old habit her mother still used that Gwen wished had died.

  “It’s Gwen, mom!” she called back as she walked from the hall to the open-concept kitchen-dining-living room space.

  She found her mother in the kitchen area making—what else, a grilled cheese sandwich, and there was a pot of homemade tomato soup warming on the stove. “It smells amazing in here,” Gwen said. Wrapping an arm around her mother who was flipping the grilled cheesy goodness.

  “Just in time,” her mother said, reaching into the cupboard for a plate and two bowls. “It’s about time you came to see your old mum too.”

  “Hey—I called you last week. You went out of town remember?” Gwen set her knapsack on the floor next to the dining table.

  “Yes, about that.” She ladled the soup into the bowls, then used the spatula to shift the sandwich from the pan onto the plate. “Here, sit down. Eat.” Her mother set the bowls and then the plate with the sandwich on the dining table.

  “You said your mom was sick. Is she okay”? Gwen asked, before blowing on the soup she had scooped up in her spoon.

  Her mother sighed. “No… she’s not… she passed, actually—but she had been extremely ill, and had been for some time I was told. It had just been a matter of time. She had all her affairs in order. Probably a blessing, no one should have to live like that.”

  “Sorry, Mom” Gwen said, giving her mother’s hand a little squeeze. She knew her mother and her grandmother had been estranged, but it was her mom after all. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose her own mother. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh—yes, I’m fine, yes. Everything had already been arranged it seemed, I just had to take care of some paperwork and it was why they had needed me there. I’m not sure I would have gone otherwise.” She pulled out the chair next to Gwen and sat down.

  “I’m glad you are okay, and I’m sorry you had to go deal with all that,” Gwen said. Gwen hadn’t been all that interested in her mother’s past before, plus her mother had never enjoyed talking about it, and it made for a sour topic. Gwen’s mother had not spoken to her own mother in years. She had shared that with Gwen when she was young and had first asked about family. Her mother’s father was dead, he had died just after her mother had graduated high school, that much Gwen knew. Her mother had given her little else about them, other than the name of the town her mother had lived in as a child. Gwen had asked about her own father, but again she hadn’t been given much. Only that he had also died, and that he and her mom had been married only a few days before he’d been killed in a car crash. His name was Frank, her mother had told her, but Gwen had never seen a picture of him or her grandparents. “I don’t suppose you have any of those amazing M&M cookies in the freezer?” Gwen asked, shifting the topic, knowing there was always cookies in the freezer.

  “Did you want me to make a care package for you?” she said, getting up from the table, and grabbing up both of their now empty bowls. She grinned over her shoulder at Gwen as she rinsed out the bowls in the sink.

  “Better pack extra. I told Scott about your famous cookies,” she said, taking the last bite of her sandwich before getting up and crossing to the sink. She ra
n the plate under the running water and set it next to the bowls. “I’ll wash these—don’t touch them, but I just want to check something first. Be right back,” Gwen said, then she rushed upstairs to her old bedroom.

  But instead of heading into her old room, she went to her mother’s room, to the walk-in closet to be more precise. She had wanted to check the contents of the old trunk for any old yearbooks, check to see if Detective Franklin had attended the same high school. He had said he was older than her mother, but they could have still been at the same school. Either way, she had also wanted to see if there were any photos in the yearbooks of her mother from when she was young.

  At the back of the closet she found the trunk, a battered and beaten thing now from being dragged with them each time they had moved. Gwen knelt in front of the trunk.

  Inside she found several stacks of books. The first stack were textbooks, the top four on the pile were, Gardner's Art Through the Ages, Computer Science Illuminated, Comparative literature: A Critical Introduction, and Living Language Complete Edition. There were a few novels in the next pile, but the others were mainly textbooks, those she’d seen before and from courses her mother had taken over the years, Gwen had assumed, but there were no yearbooks in the lot. Under the last textbook, one titled Understanding the Classic American Novel, she was surprised to find a stack of letters. Both this textbook and these letters she had not seen before.

  “What are you doing?” Gwen’s mother asked, startling her, standing now in the closet’s entrance.

  “Looking for old yearbooks or photos from when you were young,” Gwen said, shifting the textbooks back into piles.

  “I don’t have any,” her mother said, leaning against the jam of the closet door.