Mary #13

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.

 

13

Mary picked up her stuff and went in the house as it was starting to get dark.   

"Now, that was interesting, Lulu.  Eli is quite the talker but he is a pretty handsome guy, wouldn't you say?”  Lulu rubbed against Mary's leg and purred. 

 Mary picked up her phone and dialed Sadie's number.  "Hello" Sadie said.

"Hi, it's me.  What's happening” Mary asked. 

"What's happening?  I should be asking you that question.  Are you okay?” 

"Yeah, I'm fine.  Although I must say the last few days have been crazy.” 

"Do tell, spill" said Sadie. 

"Jimmy and his family went out of town which took a lot of pressure off me.  They went with his friend Mitch and Elizabeth.  I made supper for Johnny one night.  It was a little awkward but I think it went okay.  Then yesterday, I decided to sneak out to the movies and who do I see but Elizabeth’s sister there.  I overheard that she thinks Elizabeth might be sick with cancer.  Since no one knows I'm here, when the movie started I left.  So now I'm left wondering if she's ill or not and don't know what to do.  Then tonight while sitting on the front porch, Eli came over" she said with a sigh. 

"Who’s Eli?”

"Apparently, he was helping my folks the last couple of years learning farming so he could work his own farm.  I talked with him for a while.  He seems like a really nice guy.” 

"What are you going to do about Elizabeth?  I know you two were very good friends although I'm not sure you ever told me what happened between the two of you.”

"I don't know what I'm going to do about Elizabeth.  She'll be gone for a while so I'm going to think on it.”  Trying to avoid any more talk about Elizabeth Mary said "I finally went into my parent’s room. Jimmy and Johnny haven't done anything in the house.  Ma and Pa's belongings are still in their room.  Oh and I found keys in Ma's drawer, it looks like it must be from diaries but I haven't found them yet.”

"Oh that could be very interesting.  So, about this Eli guy, is he cute" she chuckled. 

"Yeah, I'd say he's pretty handsome.”

"Don't think I didn't hear that sigh when you first mentioned him.  Now don't go falling in love with a country guy.” 

"Sadie, first of all I only talked to the man for a little while.  Secondly, I have a job in New York.  Thirdly, the last thing I'm looking for in my life right now is love.  Sometimes I think I don't believe in it.” Changing the subject again, "How's work been going?”

"We've been kind of slow.  I think with the economy we're not getting as much tourism.  I think they might start laying people off.”

"That's not good.  Is anyone upset that I'm gone?”

"Not really.  I think everyone now is too worried about their own job to be thinking about you.  Hey Mary, I got a call from the hotel coming in.  Can I call you back?”

"I'm going to go to sleep early tonight.  No need to call me back.  I'll call you in a few days.  Bye.”

"Bye" Sadie said. 

Mary locked the doors, grabbed a glass of water and went upstairs and changed into her nightgown.  She crawled in bed and drifted off to sleep wondering if it had been such a good idea to take the leave of absence during the down economy. 

Mary had gotten such good sleep that she got up the next morning when the sun was rising.  She got dressed and decided she was going to go through her Ma and Pa's clothes and get them packed up for charity.  She went downstairs, fed Lulu and got herself some breakfast. 

She remembered seeing a bunch of boxes in the garage and she went out and got them making several trips.  She took them upstairs and started going through her Pa's things first.  She remembered from all those organizing shows she watched to have a save, giveaway, and a throwaway container.  First she went to the dresser.  When she started going through his clothes tears started forming as she held up the t-shirts to her nose.  She could almost smell her Pa right there with her and could almost hear him say, it’s okay baby girl things will be just fine.  Most of his clothes ended up in the throwaway box.  Her Pa never did like to spend money on clothes, Mary laughed.  They were so thread barren.  When she went to the closet to look at what was there of his, all she found were a couple of old suits.  They looked like they were at least ten to fifteen years old but were in good shape.  She put those in the giveaway box.  She thought, people would consider them vintage now and would probably buy them.  He had a couple of pair of dress shoes still in the boxes.  They looked brand new so she put those in the giveaway too. 

Mary then moved to her mother's dresser drawers and started going through them.  Her Ma didn't buy a lot of clothes either but she made sure she bought a few things every year.  Most of her clothes in the dresser were put in the giveaway box.  She then went back and started looking in the closet.  Her Ma had a lot of dresses, skirts, blouses and jeans.  As she sorted through them, she noticed some of them were back from the 60's.  There were some bell bottomed pants and some tie-dyed stuff.  Hmm she thought, maybe her Ma was a hippie at one time.  Then she remembered them telling stories of growing up in the hollers of West Virginia.  Although there families were both poor, they stilled loved it and that's why they wanted to be buried there.  Mary started to tear up again but started pulling clothes out and putting them in the giveaway box.  Most of her Ma's shoes were good too.  She then got a chair and looked on the top shelf.  There were two big boxes with yarn and knitting needles. Her Ma used to always tell her you can never have too much yarn.  She couldn't really see anything else but reached her hand up as far as she could to the back of the shelf and felt something and reached for it.  When she got it out, it looked like they were diaries but each one had a name and a picture on the front.  One was for Jimmy, Johnny and Mary. 

Mary had so many emotions when she saw them.  At first she was excited she had discovered the diaries to the mysterious keys in her Ma's jewelry box.  Then she was elated and fascinated thinking that this was from her Ma to them wondering what could be inside.  Then she felt overwhelmed and saddened by finding them.  She took them and put them on top of dresser.  She would look at them later tonight when she could give the one with her picture and name her full attention. She looked in the boxes and the only ones that were full were the throwaway and the giveaway box. She closed up the boxes and looked around the room.  There were still a lot of knick knacks to get out but she felt exhausted and decided to lie on the bed and take a nap.

 

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