LITMIR.BIZ

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please don’t splash up the mirror.”

      “Who, me?” He scrubbed his hands, ran wet fingers through his hair and dried off. “Lots of good stuff up there,” he said, catching the water drips on his forehead as he emerged from the bathroom.

      “Half the city library and dump, I’m sure,” she murmured, fixing his plate.

      “What’s that, Gram?” he said, bouncing into the kitchen and patting her rounded shoulder as he threw his leg over his chair and dropped into it. He watched her brush gray wisps of hair from her brow over her ears.

      “I think it’s time to start getting rid of all that junk.”

      “Gram, did Gramps save anything valuable up there that you know of?”

      “Heavens, don’t ask me, but I doubt it.” she said, lifting a tablespoon of peas onto her plate. “I know he thought someday all that stuff would be worth money, but that wasn’t it. Your Grandpa just loved everything from the past. All his life, ever since I met him, reading about old movie stars, and ghost towns and even going down to city hall, trying to dig up records of the family to find the family roots, when they were born-- all kinds of things-- what boat they came over on, where they lived, worked. He even talked about going back to the old country someday and looking up the names in the churches, he said, because that’s where the only records were kept unless you were royalty.”

      “He was a real nostalgia buff,” Gary said, ladling more gravy onto his potatoes. “I guess I’m like him in a lot of ways. I remember how he used to get me out of bed so I could watch some late-night Western with him.”

      “He liked the black-and-white movies best. And those jazzy records-- oh, my.”

      “I know. I used to listen to them with him. Goodman, the Duke, Kenton….”

      When they’d finished, Gary pushed his chair back.

      “I hope you’re not going up there again.”

      “No, Gram, but, you know, there’s something about the past. It just grabs me right here.” He poked his heart. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve lived before,” he said, looking across to her. “Does that make sense?”

      Creases deepened in her pale forehead. “Your grandpa used to feel the same way,” she said. “I didn’t understand it then and I don’t understand it now. It seems to me everybody gets a turn in life. Those people back then had their turn. Today is our turn, yours and mine and, yes, even Grandpa’s, though he never could see it that way. It’s like giving up something you have for something you can never have. I’m just not so sure it’s a healthy thing.”

      He laughed. “Gram, what harm can come from it? It’s like a hobby. Some people like golfing, some like fishing. In a way, it’s like collecting, collecting memories-- or recollecting them. I can’t really explain it. I only know it’s a good feeling, like the bitter-sweet feeling you get from hearing a sad song. It’s sort of like all the people in the world are on a trip together and some of us would rather see where we’ve been than where we are, or even where we’re going.”

      She studied him as he spoke, watching his animated hands, seeing his dark hair flop over the bright blue eyes that flashed with excitement, the angular features of his face flush with the joy of someone making a discovery-- or maybe it was simply the exuberance of youth-- so like his father at his age, God rest his soul.

      “I’ll say it again, Gary, it’s not something I understand.” She rose and carried the dishes to the sink. “And something I’m not sure I want to understand. All I know is that people don’t walk backwards. They don’t drive backwards. You don’t see the clock running backwards, that’s for sure-- too bad for me and my wrinkles. I don’t know, Gary, maybe I’m just not smart enough, but it hardly seems natural to me, this hankering after the past. It just never did.”

      “Gram,” he said, sitting back and looking far off, “you know what I really wish?”

      “Oh, dear, I’m afraid to ask.”

      “I’d love to go back, I mean actually transport myself into the past, to…like when you were young, to actually be there and see everything firsthand, talk to--”

      “I’ve lived those times, Gary, and believe me, they’re not everything your grandpa made them out to be. I wouldn’t want to live them over again, I tell you.”

      “Want some help wiping, Gram?” he asked, rising and carrying his plate and glass over to the sink.

      “No,” she said, drowning the dishes in a pan of soapy water. “I’m fine. You’re not seeing Shelley tonight?”

      “Shelley’s busy with homework, some project.”

      “No homework for you?”

      “I’m taking a break. I deserve it.”

      “Of course you do, dear…Oh, there’s a nice movie on tonight. Do you want to watch it with me?”

      “Old or new?”

      “Pretty old, I think.”

      He laughed. “‘Pretty old’ isn’t old enough for me, Gram. Thanks, but I’ll take a rain check,” he said, going down the hall to his room.

      She smiled to herself as she lined the dishes in the rack to drain. Her thoughts turned inward to her husband, Granville, gone ten years ago, just like that, of a stroke, just about the time of his retirement from the railroad…and just when they could have really enjoyed life! And eight years before that, their son, John, killed in a car accident with Debbie, his wife, leaving Gary a six-year old orphan. At first it was hard, not being a spring chicken anymore when they took him in. Now he was the sole joy of her life and her sole reason for living. So much like her husband, Gary almost made her feel that her Granville had never left her, that Gary was there to take his place.

      She rinsed the rest of the dishes and dried them with slow, circular motions and stacked them in the cupboard. Arthritis stabbed her shoulder with every stretch, the way it hurt her knees all the time. She was getting older fast, and privately she worried. How much longer would Gary be with her? He was already twenty-three, or was it twenty-four? …no, not for another few months… and apparently quite serious with Shelley. Being engaged, it was only a matter of time before they-- The sudden thought of being left alone or, worse, shipped off to a nursing home so terrified her that she almost dropped the bowl in her hand… to be put in with all those old people!

      With the door closed behind him, Gary opened his computer to check his e-mail. “Nobody loves me,” he said, shutting it down and making a quick dive onto his bed. His eyes burned from all the reading of record labels, advertisements and magazines earlier in the attic, and his full belly made him sleepy. Turning on his side to get more comfortable, he spotted the old newspaper atop his dresser. Briefly, he fought the impulse to get up, but memory of the haunting face of the little girl on the front page got the best of him and he gave into it. Sitting on the edge of his bed he smoothed the paper on his lap and began to read.

      What Gary didn’t realize at the moment was that the newspaper he’d found buried that afternoon would open the door to the past, to a world of danger, mystery and romance.

       Chapter 3

      

      The little girl smiled out at him again, seemed to be smiling with bright eyes, despite the shadowy quality of the picture. The story, continued on an inside page, was so disturbing he could hardly bring himself to read it, but after doing the calendar math he comforted himself with the knowledge that the pain and the agony of the murder no longer had meaning to anyone. Sixty years or so was a long time ago. Still, he read through the account quickly:

      

       Early this morning two boys discovered the partially decomposed body of nine year old Dolores

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