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Dying Embers
Click – Clack – Click – Clack.
He glanced irritably up at the ancient fan whirling away on the ceiling. He didn’t mind so much when the windows were open and the combination of the fan and fresh air were enough to provide a modicum of relief from the hot, humid weather. But Mr. Cates had decided today was the day he would earn his keep as Mayor of the town and he was next door shuttered away with the senior clerk. Mr. Cates didn’t like intrusive street noises – they distracted his already frazzled mind.
He sighed and ploughed on through the stack of correspondence on his desk. As junior clerk, it was his responsibility to read all the letters addressed to the Mayor’s office (there were lots because people wrote to the Mayor about the silliest and most trivial things). He also wrote back on Mr. Cates’ behalf although the credit went to the senior clerk because he was never allowed to talk to Mr. Cates without his superior present.
Hours later (and with his window finally open after Mr. Cates’ noisy departure) he was tired, hungry and desperately eager to get home. He finished his reply to Mrs. Benson and assured her that there was absolutely no need to have Mrs. Cudgles arrested for having wind-chimes with a voodoo doll on top. He didn’t believe in all that voodoo nonsense and didn’t have patience with superstitious people. A proper God-fearing man was he. He was clearing up his desk when he suddenly remembered there had been no letter with a gold sticker on the back.
It was Wednesday. Every Wednesday for the past 10 years Mrs. Abbott had sent a letter to the Mayor’s office addressed to her son Billy who had gone missing (some said run away from home) the summer before Mr. Abbott died of a heart attack. Far be it from him to speak ill of the dead but Mr. Abbott’s character had left a lot to be desired and some cited his violent temper as the reason for Billy not being home to take care of his mother.
The letters came every Wednesday, delivered by whoever she managed to corner that week, and the enveloped always had a gold sticker on the back. She said her Billy loved getting gold stickers on his homework. He had never ever opened any of the letters. It wouldn’t be right and he would have been embarrassed by the emotional pleas of a mother who was probably writing the letters just to keep a ray of hope alive in her heart.
He had tried explaining to Mrs. Abbott that the Mayor’s office couldn’t do anything beyond what had already been done by the Sherriff’s office in searching for her boy but she kept sending the letters saying she had faith in God. It had been years since he had stomped up the stairs to her rooms above the butcher’s shop to try to convince her to stop writing to the Mayor’s office. Mr. Cates didn’t care, neither did his predecessor and his successor wasn’t likely to either.
But she hadn’t stopped. Faintly concerned, he quickly looked over his desk, under it and even in the waste paper bin. Not finding the letter, his grew even more concerned and then frustrated at himself for the concern. After all, if anything had happened to Mrs. Abbott he would have heard about it by now – in a small town like this you didn’t have to read the obituaries to find out if someone had died. Shouldn’t he be happy she had taken his advice and finally given up on trying to locate her son through the Mayor’s office?
Determined to ignore the mild flutter in his heart, he finished tidying up his tiny office, collected his coat from the peg near the door and locked up the office. His house was just ten minutes away from the Mayor’s office so he had never used the rusty old Toyota in the garage for anything but a trip to the next town when it was time for the big county fair. A brisk walk was just the thing to clear the cobwebs off the mind.
He hadn’t even crossed the small garden around the Mayor’s office when he found himself stopping and staring at a row of neatly trimmed rose bushes. Mrs. Abbot loved flowers. Her roses always won a prize at the county fair and Mrs. Benson had been complaining of unfair judges to anyone who would listen for as long as anyone could remember. He felt angry with himself for thinking about her and tried to remind himself of the leftover meat pie in his pantry.
Giving in to the irrational impulse, he decided to go check on her. He could always pretend he needed to pick up some chicken wings from the butcher. After all, as a representative of the Mayor’s office he did have a responsibility to check on the residents. The butcher’s shop wasn’t that far from his house and the detour was worth killing the nagging voice in his head.
He had worked himself up into a bit of a temper by the time he got there. Stubborn old woman. Why couldn’t she have come up to the office to tell him she was done hoping? She owed him that much for putting up with her over the years – for being patient and understanding her need to maintain some connection with the memories of her only child. He had never married so he may have lacked empathy but certainly never sympathy. He huffed and puffed up the stairs to her rooms and knocked sharply on the door.
She opened (after a good five minutes) and stared at him without so much as a “Good evening”.
“Good evening, Mrs. Abbott. I wonder if I might come in for a bit… something I wanted to talk to you about”.
She still kept looking at him with oddest expression on her face. But she stepped aside and gestured him in. Her rooms, as always, were shabby everything was as clean as she could manage and there was a homely smell about the place – as if someone had just finished baking. He settled himself on the single chair, leaving the two-seater couch for her. She seated herself and wouldn’t look at him directly.
“Mrs. Abbott, as you know I have always thought of myself as a good neighbor. And while we may not know each other very well, I was hoping you wouldn’t mind if…..”
“You came…”.
It was so softly said he might have missed it if he had been a loud talker. As it is, he still wondered if he had heard wrong.
“Beg your pardon, Mrs. Abbott? Didn’t quite hear what you said.”
“You came. I wondered if you would. It’s been so long I had almost lost hope”.
She looked up as she said the last word and he feared that she had finally succumbed to insanity.
“Mrs. Abbott, I came about the letters…”
“Yes, I know you did. Rose said you wouldn’t. She said if you hadn’t after so many years you wouldn’t even notice if I didn’t write anymore”.
Her voice seemed to grow bolder with each word and her eyes were remarkably lucid for a person losing touch with the real world.
“Mrs. Abbott, of course I noticed. You’re the only one in town who sends the letter with the gold sticker. I noticed there wasn’t one today so I thought I would come and see if you were all right.”
“I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you. I told Rose you couldn’t possibly ignore my last letter! I told her you wouldn’t stay away after what I’d written in the last one”.
“ Mrs. Abbott, I have never read any of your letters! How could you possibly think I would go through a letter that wasn’t meant for the Mayor’s office?”
“But then, why are you here?”
The bewildered expression on her face must have matched his and he was cursing himself for giving in to the impulse that had driven him here.
“Please excuse me Mrs. Abbott. I have to rush now. I will ask the butcher’s wife to look in on you and maybe send for the doctor…”
In his haste to get away he ignored her protests and didn’t stop till he was safely inside his own home. Only then did he remember he hadn’t asked Rose, the butcher’s wife, to look in on Mrs. Abbott and ask the doctor if she had finally given in to grief and lost her grip on reality.
It took him a few days to shake off the uncomfortable feeling that he had missed something important… that look in her eyes. He had remembered to talk to Rose and then stayed out of the business, as anyone with good manners and decency would do. A week passed. And then the next. Then it happened.
Mrs. Abbott died. The doctor said it was grief and she had been alone and sad for too long. The townspeople agreed. He did too, and he ignored the ache in his heart. And kept on ignoring it till it stopped beating.
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