Lost and Found

by Rick R. Reed

  “I know how much you cared about Dee. I only met her the one time, but I could tell she was a special lady—salty and sweet. I liked her.” He pulled back a little to show Mac his smile and was alarmed to see how pale Mac looked, even for him, and that his face, rather than looking distraught, had a vacancy about it. Flynn drew him back into his arms, holding him closer and tighter. Mac felt cold, and Flynn noticed he was trembling just a little bit.

  Flynn said to the top of Mac’s head, “I know she was more than a landlady to you—”

  Mac shoved Flynn away, cutting off his words. “It wasn’t Dee. That was my aunt Virginia. Grandma’s dead. Not Dee. Grandma Grace.”

  And this time it was Mac who fell into Flynn’s embrace, clutching him so hard Flynn feared he’d lose his breath.

  And he didn’t mind a bit.

  The embrace, though, didn’t last long. Only a few seconds, really. Mac pulled away once more, sniffling and staring at Flynn like he was a stranger. “Did you hear me?”

  “I did. And I’m so sorry, babe.”

  “Oh, don’t call me babe.” Mac sighed. “I’m not your babe. The only person I ever loved and who ever really loved me is dead.” He smiled, but there was no happiness in it. “She can go join my parents now.” He closed his eyes and then leaned against the kitchen counter. “They can watch me from above.” He looked at the breakfast ingredients laid out on the counter and the stove and then back at Flynn. “I need to make arrangements. I need to get back home today.”

  “Of course.” Flynn wasn’t sure what else he should do or say. Mac didn’t seem like he wanted to be held. There was something off about him, like he was going into shock, which maybe he was. “What can I do?” Flynn asked at last. “Please let me do something.”

  “It just feels weird having you here.” Mac peered around the kitchen, gaze desperate. “Can you just go home? Would you mind?”

  Flynn’s heart tore a little. “Are you sure? I’m concerned about you. I can hop online and help you get your flight booked. You want me to do that? I’m a whiz on Expedia.”

  Mac turned and stared out the window. “Please. Please don’t make this harder than it has to be. I need to be alone.” He sighed and then, barely above a whisper, said, “I am anyway.”

  Flynn wasn’t sure he heard the last part correctly, but the last thing he wanted to do was to ask Mac to repeat himself.

  “Sure, I’ll go up and grab my stuff. If you change your mind—”

  Mac cut him off. “I won’t.”

  “Okay.” Now it was Flynn who felt himself trembling a bit. He wanted to ask if he could at least put stuff away but had the feeling if he pressed Mac on anything, he’d explode. He tried to console himself as he headed back up the stairs to the bedroom. It’s not you. It’s not personal. He’s just had a horrible loss he wasn’t even expecting. Give him his space, but let him know you’re there for him.

  The bed still looked warm and inviting, with slats of sunlight falling across the white sheets. Flynn stared mournfully at it, thinking how life could change in an instant. He dressed quickly and went back downstairs.

  In the kitchen he found Mac on the floor, holding Barley close and stroking his head. He didn’t think Mac heard him, because he didn’t look up as Flynn looked on from the kitchen archway. Mac softly wept into the dog’s fur.

  Flynn hated to break them apart, so he said, “You want to take him with you? I’ve got a carrier. He’s too big to fit under the seat and he’d have to fly cargo, but I’m willing to let him go with you.”

  Mac looked up at him, his face now wet with tears and his eyes red rimmed. “Really?”

  Flynn nodded. “He’d be a comfort.”

  Mac got up with effort. “I’m sure he would.” He started putting the food Flynn had gotten out away. “But he’s your dog, and it would probably be more trouble than it’s worth.” He sighed, his back to Flynn. “No, just take him and run along, okay?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes!” Mac snapped. He turned then and stared at Flynn. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that I loved her so much.”

  “I know.”

  Mac shook his head. “You don’t. But thanks.” And it was like a wall went up. Mac went silent. His eyes grew dark. And Flynn felt he had no choice but to leave.

  He squatted down and called Barley away from Mac. He had to do it a couple of times before the dog would come to him. That was a thing with Barley—he seemed attuned to human needs and wants. He always knew when Flynn was sick or down and, during those times, would never leave his side.

  He got Barley leashed and said, “We’ll be here when you get back.”

  “Okay,” Mac said softly. He didn’t turn around, just stood at the sink, staring out the window. His shoulders shook.

  “I hate to leave you like this—” Flynn started.

  “The best thing you can do,” Mac said, his voice breaking just a little, “is to leave me like this. Please.”

  And Flynn said nothing as he headed out into the bright summer morning.

  He had no idea what would happen next.

  Chapter 14

  MAC TOOK a long look around the baggage claim area at Pittsburgh International Airport. He was searching for an ancient woman with dyed orange hair and lipstick to match. Her lips would be drawn on bigger than the thin line she was stuck with for a mouth. She’d be wearing a cotton dress with a floral pattern, and she’d call it a “shift.” Feathered mules on her feet, no matter the weather or the disapproving glances of strangers. More than likely she’d have a paperback novel in her lap, something dog-eared with its spine broken, by someone like Jackie Collins or Mary Higgins Clark.

  And there she was! Aunt Virginia! She didn’t see Mac coming, dragging his army-green duffel behind him. She was his grandmother’s sister, older than her by five years, but still, quite obviously, fit as a fiddle. She’d lost her husband years ago when he was coming home from his night shift at the steel mill in Midland, Pennsylvania and had stopped to change a flat. He’d been hit by a car in the darkness and killed instantly. Virginia had been only forty at the time, but Mac thought she’d never looked at another man after that, although some might say she certainly dressed to attract. But her passions were bubble baths, pulp fiction, and bingo every Sunday night at the American Legion.

  Mac slowed. He could also see something of his grandmother in her sister, although at first glance the two would appear to be polar opposites. Virginia was rail thin, almost emaciated, while Grandma was full-figured, pillowy, soft, with wide hips and a big bosom. Grace and Virginia might have once had similarly colored hair, but that color was a mystery to Mac. Perhaps it was red like his own. Virginia’s was now an orange that would make a hipster in Seattle jealous, while his grandma had let her hair go gray, highlighting it every once in a while with a silver rinse. Grandma favored slacks and oversized sweatshirts with designs like glittery owls or something. He’d never seen Virginia in a pair of pants.

  But the one thing both women had in common—they had good, kind hearts, and that attribute manifested in both pairs of eyes. They always put others, especially Mac, first. As he stared at Aunt Virginia, he felt a ball form in his throat and the tears gather. He didn’t want her first time seeing him after several years to be a vision of him as a snotty, sobbing mess, so he drew in several deep breaths, clenching and unclenching his fists, trying to remain calm.

  At last Aunt Virginia looked up from her book and spied him. She closed the book, and her lips went up in a smile that belied the sadness in her eyes. She stood, somewhat unsteadily, and began moving toward him. She had a little limp.

  Mac hurried to meet her, not wanting her to walk any farther than she had to.

  She grabbed him and hugged him fiercely once he was within reach. “I love you, dear boy,” she whispered in his ear. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  Just the simple declaration ruined all Mac’s hard work at preventing himself from crying. He burst into tears, cling
ing helplessly to his aunt like a little boy, heedless of all the passengers around them.

  She patted his back, making sympathetic noises.

  When they pulled away, Virginia’s mascara was smeared, and her tears had made lines in her foundation, right down through her rouge. Mac was on a roller coaster and couldn’t help what came next—he burst out in laughter. And not just a chuckle, but a full-on laughter fit, on and on until the tears came and his belly ached. When the laughs finally slowed to a few, Mac felt he could barely catch his breath.

  “What?” Virginia asked, touching a hand to her cheek.

  “Sorry,” Mac said, struggling to catch his breath. “You look like a raccoon.”

  “Oh well, thanks, Mac. You certainly know the way to an old lady’s heart!”

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Virginia.”

  She waved him away. “Don’t worry about it.” She took his arm. “Let’s go find a ladies’ so I can freshen up.” She looked down at his duffel. “Is that all you brought?”

  Mac snorted. “It’s about all I have! We’s poor.”

  “Yeah, right. Oh, here’s one.” And before Mac knew it, Aunt Virginia had ducked into the ladies’ room.

  She came out after a few minutes, makeup freshened—or applied with a trowel, Mac thought unkindly—and clutching a little red leatherette case tightly in one hand. Mac knew it contained her cigarettes, Marlboro Red 100s, and that she was probably dying to get outside where she could smoke. Although well into her eighties and a lifelong smoker of up to two packs a day, Virginia seemed to have no adverse effects from the habit, other than a row of lines above her upper lip. Those she concealed with lipstick, pretty much.

  He was right. As they stepped outside into the humid Pennsylvania summer air, she took the first opportunity she could to light up with an orange Bic. She blew the smoke in a graceful plume out the side of her mouth. A security guard came over to her.

  “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but you can’t smoke out here.”

  “What?” Virginia’s eyes widened in surprise. “But we’re outside!” She drew in on her cigarette and blew smoke at the guy’s face.

  He shrugged. “I don’t make the rules.”

  She continued to suck down her smoke. “What are you gonna do? Arrest me?”

  The guard chuckled, shaking his head. “I just might.” And he walked away.

  Virginia laughed. “The things us old ladies can get away with. I know they have designated areas for smoking, which, by the way, is ridiculous. We’re outside, for Christ’s sake!”

  She held her cigarette case out to Mac. “You want one?”

  Mac shook his head. “Never took up the habit.”

  They continued their walk toward the parking garage, Virginia smoking like Bette Davis all the way. “Good for you.” She glanced down at her own cigarette, turning it this way and that as though admiring a piece of jewelry. “These things’ll kill you. Disgusting.” She took another drag.

  Mac thought of the irony. His grandmother had never smoked and rarely drank.

  They didn’t say much more as they headed toward Virginia’s car, which Mac knew would be the latest model of Buick. Virginia got a new car every year, whether she needed one or not. His grandmother said she was frivolous.

  When they were getting inside, Virginia looked across the roof at Mac. “I’m really sorry, honey. I know she was everything to you. She was to me too. It was just too soon.”

  Mac slid inside, his head lowered. What does one say back to a comment like that? That it was true? That his heart was broken? That he didn’t know how he’d exist in a world that no longer contained Grandma Grace?

  The answers weren’t written on the pristine floor of the car, but Mac searched there anyway.

  MAC WATCHED from the porch of his grandma’s trailer as Virginia sped away too fast, gravel kicked up behind her, narrowly missing the mailbox at the end of the drive. She managed to also toot the horn and stick a cigarette-holding hand out the car window while shouting, “Toodle-loo!”

  Virginia had seemed to instinctively understand Mac’s need to be alone in the house he grew up in. She had handed him her set of keys and told him she’d come back in the morning, when viewing hours were scheduled. “You get a good night’s sleep, mister. I’ve been to enough wakes for loved ones that I can attest—they’re exhausting. So even though you’re young and fit and probably have more energy than you know what to do with, take Aunt Virginia’s advice and go to bed early.”

  He’d nodded and promised he would. And they’d hugged good-bye.

  The entrance to Grandma’s trailer was a pair of french doors with small glass windowpanes. For privacy she’d put up white lace sheers over the glass so she could still let the sunlight in.

  He pushed the key into the lock, and the right-hand door opened with a creak.

  And Mac gave out a little cry, finding himself breathless and teary-eyed. Grandma’s smell—talcum powder and Windsong cologne—rushed up to surround him, triggering memories that were almost visceral. It was like Grandma stood in the trailer, just out of sight.

  Mac stepped in and closed the door behind him. For just a moment, one horrible, fantastic moment, he imagined his grandma coming out from the hallway that led back to the two bedrooms and the bath, arms outstretched.

  “Hey there, stranger,” she’d cry. And Mac could see the delight behind her oversized-frame glasses. Since it was early, she’d be wearing what she called her “housecoat,” something satiny and quilted, and her bedroom slippers.

  The image made him weak in the knees, and he sat down on one of the two living room love seats and closed his eyes. The smell still surrounded him. Mac thought maybe he’d grab some of her talcum from the bathroom and see if there was still a bottle of Windsong on the little mirrored tray she kept on her bedroom dresser. He could take them home with him, to keep as a reminder of her.

  The smells, too old lady, too flowery, would be precious to him, something he could use when he missed her and was feeling low. Smell really was a powerful prodder of memory.

  He let his head loll back on the couch, and a whole wave of recollections washed over him.

  Here was Grandma shortly after he’d settled in, looking in on him, a twelve-year-old boy, lying on the daybed in the tiny extra bedroom, dressed in jeans and a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball shirt. “You gonna be okay in there?” she’d asked. “You got everything you need? There are more blankets in the hall closet if you get chilly during the night.”

  Mac closed the book he was reading. He could still remember. It was Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz. He’d read that book, like, three times in a row after his parents’ car wreck took them away. It was the only thing that could keep him from reliving when he’d been called out of class at school to be told what had happened.

  “I’m okay, Gram. Really.” He remembered thinking he’d be brave for her, so he forced himself to smile.

  She started away.

  “Oh. Do you think I could have one thing?”

  She turned. “Anything you want, Mac. If I have it to give….”

  “Oh, it’s not much. I just wondered if you wouldn’t mind letting Olive sleep in here tonight.” He sucked in a breath, holding back tears.

  Grandma smiled and looked down at the Chihuahua-dachshund mix at her feet. The dog had been her constant companion for more than a decade. She was deaf, and her eyes were clouded by cataracts, but she was as loving a pooch as you’d ever want to meet. Even though Grandma knew Olive couldn’t hear her, she asked, “What do you think, honey? You want to keep Mac here company? Just for tonight, of course.” She smiled at Olive and then at Mac. She nodded. “I think that’ll be okay.”

  She’d stooped down, lifted Olive, and then brought her to Mac on the bed. She laid her down next to him, and Mac put his arm around her. She lifted her head and licked his chin.

  “I think she’s very happy to be with you,” Grandma said.

  “Thanks, Gram. I’ll feel better with her next to me.�
� He hugged the dog close, and she didn’t seem to mind. “Just for tonight, of course.”

  “Of course,” Gram had said before toddling off to her bedroom at the back of the trailer.

  Olive had slept with Mac every night until she’d passed away peacefully one of those nights in her sleep.

  And here was Grandma much later on a Christmas morning, opening all the Seattle-themed gifts he’d bought her the first Christmas he came back after moving to the Pacific Northwest. She’d made all kinds of approving noises about the hooded Seahawks sweatshirt, the Beecher’s cheese assortment, the Starbucks coffee mug that Mac had been delighted to find had been made just one town over in East Liverpool, Ohio, and the box of Fran’s dark chocolate caramels with sea salt. The candy, especially, had been an extravagance he couldn’t afford, but he knew he’d get as much joy—if not more—from watching her open the surprises as she would.

  And she had been overjoyed, especially and surprisingly with the coffee mug. But then there was just a moment when sadness flickered through her hazel eyes. She’d tried to hide it with an even bigger smile, but Mac had become an expert in reading his grandmother’s moods and expressions.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Mac! Why would you ask that? There’s nothing the matter. These are all beautiful. You spent too much! I can’t wait to try the cheese… and the chocolates. My goodness! You really went too far this time, young man. You didn’t need to bring me anything at all.” She reached out and gave him a brief hug. “Just you being here is present enough for me.”

  The sadness returned to her eyes, and she didn’t try to hide it this time. Mac doubted that she could.

  She moved from where they’d sat on the floor beneath her little artificial tree, decorated with red bows, candy canes, and white lights, to the couch, where she could sit more comfortably, still clutching her new coffee mug. “I just wish you weren’t so far away!” She shook her head, eyes glimmering with tears Mac knew she was trying hard to hold back from falling. “Why did you want to move all the way across the country?”