Mary #11

If anyone does Saturday Centus you might somewhat remember this story started as a centus.  In  June of 2010, I wrote a few chapters on Mary and then stopped.  I had so much to write about her, writing weekly for centus wasn't enough.  I then wrote and wrote until I had over 30,000 words so far.  In writing it though as I got further and further my original premise somehow got blown out of the water, ha, ha. I stopped writing her story in March of 2011.   I still haven't quite figured out how I'm going to work this out but I thought I would put out what I have so far.   Please remember this is a really rough draft and when I wrote it, I had no chapters.  Before I decided to put this on the blog I had to go back and figure out where I could make them.  I would suggest this is a terrible way of doing it lol.  The first chapter started on March 23rd, 2012.

 

11

"When we leave I'm going to have to stop at my sister’s house.  They went on vacation for a couple of weeks and she wanted me to take the stuff home out of her refrigerator.  Would you mind stopping with me?” Mary recognized it as Jody's voice. 

"No, that's fine.  Has your sister said anything?  I know you've been worried about her" the other voice said.

Mary's ears really perked up then.  "No, I keep asking and asking.  She keeps saying everything is fine but I can tell something is really wrong.” 

"You think her and Mitch are having problems?” 

"No way, she's more in love with him than ever.  I think something is wrong with her health.  She hasn't looked well for a while. Sometimes she seems like she's in another world when I talk to her.   It's also strange, Mitch and Jimmy are best friends but their families never took vacations together.  Elizabeth was the one that suggested they go to the cabin together.  You know, Jimmy’s wife Donna had breast cancer years ago.” 

“You don't think Elizabeth has breast cancer, do you?” 

"She very well could.  You know my granny died from it.  Mom had to have a couple of biopsies but luckily, it was nothing.  I'm worried that maybe she wants to talk to Donna about it since she went through it.”

"Well, let's hope that's not the case" the stranger's voice said. 

"Here are the previews" Jody said.

Mary's head was reeling now.  The movie theater darkened somewhat and she was dumbfounded.  She had some contact with Elizabeth over the years but since her wedding day their relationship had been almost nonexistent. There was the occasional email that Mary sometimes acknowledged and sometimes didn't.  It had probably been at least a couple of years since she heard from her, except for the condolence card she sent Mary when her parents died. 

The movie started.  Mary gathered up her purse and quickly headed out of the theater.  She barely made it to her car and the tears started as she was driving.   

Mary pulled her car around the back of the house.   She went in, got a bottle of wine and a glass and headed right to the couch.  She took her shoes and hat off and threw them, almost hitting Lulu.  She grabbed her grandma's quilt, wrapped it around her and the floodgates opened. 

Lulu jumped on the couch.  "Oh Lulu, I can't believe it.  Elizabeth might be sick.  All these years, I haven't talked to her and now when she probably needs me the most, I can't go to her.  How could I, without telling her why I stopped talking to her?” 

Mary took another glass of wine, and then another until she was done with the bottle.  She got up unsteadily and started to go up the stairs.  Then she saw the closed door. Her Ma and Pa's closed door.  She went to the door, put her hand on the handle and turned it.  She went to her parent’s bed and crawled under the quilt.

"Ma, Pa" she cried.  ” I'm sorry “and then passed out.  

Mary slept until almost noon the next day.  When she got up, she was surprised to see herself in her parent’s bed.  She didn't remember much of last night but she did remember what happened at the movies but quickly put it out of her mind.  There was nothing to be done about it now anyhow since Elizabeth wasn’t in town and she didn’t even know IF anything was wrong.

Her eyes were suddenly drawn to her Ma's mirrored dresser and the jewelry box.  She slowly went and opened it.  Her Ma never had much jewelry but she remembered going through it with her.  There was her grandma's wedding ring and some broaches.  Her Ma always told her if times ever got hard for us kids that we could sell the stuff and would get a lot of money.  Looking further, her Ma still had little necklaces that we kids had made for her.  Wonder what's in these little envelopes Mary thought.  As she pulled the two envelopes out one said Mary's diary keys and the other said Hannah's keys.  Mary opened the two envelopes and the key's looked identical.  Mary thought her Ma must have diaries that she wrote too.  She never knew that.  Then she heard the cell phone ringing downstairs.

She ran down the stairs and was out of breath when she said "Hello?”

"Hi Mar, this is Johnny.  I thought we could have dinner tonight again.  I could bring something; if you’re not doing anything, what do you think?”

After the night she had finding out something might be wrong with Elizabeth and then finally going into her Ma and Pa's room she really didn't want company.  "Johnny, I'm not feeling that great today. Too much wine I think.   I was just going to stay in my pj's all day and probably lay around and watch TV, can we do it another day?”

"Sure that's okay, why don't you give me a call when you’re feeling better.” 

"Okay, talk to you later Johnny" and hung up.

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.