Page 37 - WTP Vol.VII #2

mouth, her breath noxious and hot. “I want Sadie,” she whispered.
me. Sadie gripped my hand and urged me forward.
I frowned in protest because I didn’t want to leave her side. She opened her red eyes wide and said firmly, “Hilario now.”
Nadya was indeed dead. In her passing, she had aged a thousand years. Her hair had turned white and thinned so much so that age spots were visible on her scalp. The skin on her face like a withered apple. Her mouth was gaping, her jaw almost touching her throat as though she screamed for her last breath. With
“I don’t know where she lives,” I said.
her eyelids sunken in, I was certain that beneath her wraps she was a mere husk.
“She’s waiting for you.” Her words one drawn out sigh.
I reluctantly threw on my jacket and left the cottage, angry and confused. I wasn’t in a mood to engage in her Gypsy shenanigans, certainly not now in her final moments.
Finally able to tear my eyes away from her horrible face, I noticed an ancient box enclosed in her bony hands. In the half-light, it appeared that the box floated between her fingers. I touched the box and felt a charge enter my body. A luxurious warmth spread through my body.
I began at the post office, asking if anyone knew Sadie Maysfield. They wouldn’t release any information.
I experienced the same silence at the library, police station, and Social Security Office. No one had heard of Sadie Maysfield at Zhang Laundromat, the S & H Green Stamp Redemption Store, DiNardo’s Mercantile,
I carried the gift from Nadya to the kitchen with Sadie by my side. The box read Red Dot Cigars with an im- age of a curly-haired woman who might have been attractive a century ago. Sadie leaned against me as I examined the box, a tiny nail holding the lid in place, cardboard fiber exposed along the edges. When
“Their smiles were all fake because they
I lifted it, a redolence of dust and oil swathed the room. It was so packed; the cardboard walls should have bulged.
didn’t like the darkness of my daddy’s skin, didn’t like that he didn’t know his place.”
Discovering items in the box would be a sacred act for me. First, a bag containing extra large marbles, all of them clear with rainbows of color inside. I handed each one to Sadie, and she held them up to light.
and Pedersen’s Five and Dime.
They reminded me of crystal balls that Nadya might have placed between herself and a customer. A coin purse filled with buttons and an ancient coin with the surface worn away, a rusted mother-of-pearl handled pocketknife, a deep blue clip-on bowtie, three stubby pencils with brittle erasers, and a tarnished brooch with an Indian figure with tiny emerald eyes.
In frustration, I hurried back toward Nadya’s cottage, anxious to be by her side.
Buried at the very bottom was a photo folded into fourths, an unfocused sepia, the material along the creases flaked away. A little girl sat on a black horse, her chin high, the reins held by a short dark man. Writ- ten on the back in fancy curlicue Tant Mieux.
As I approached, I saw a figure on the concrete step, and my heartbeat quickened. I knew the hair and the figure, the way she carried herself. When Sadie saw me, she ran toward me, and I knew something was dreadfully wrong.
She grabbed me as if she were falling, and I held her as she sobbed, feeling shudders rack her body. Our embrace lasted a moment and a lifetime.
Melena writes in Denver, CO. He has been associated with Light- house Writers for twelve years and participated in the Book Project, an intensive two-year program that resulted in a completed manuscript. “Angry Clouds,” a short story, was published by Green Hills Literary Lantern in 2016. It was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. “Lessons from Shallow Water,” another short story, was a runner-up in a contest at El Andar Magazine.
At last, she let me go, wiped her tears, and took me by the hand. Upon entering the cottage, I cried out and stopped short because of the image of Nadya before
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