Handle With Care

Fay pedaled earnestly under a canopy of still-green trees. Summer beckoned from the laughing leaves, but the nineteen-year-old didn't hear. She was chasing a memory, but no matter how her legs burned, it always eluded her. Like a shadow slipping around a corner. When she finally tucked her bicycle into the shed, Fay was spent. The dream had returned, last night. Fay pressed her forehead. In the dream there was a woman, a woman she felt she should know. Fay was there, but she was much shorter, tilting upward to the woman. There was something else, too, in the edges of the picture, that she couldn’t grasp. A petulant summons from her aunt blew through the open kitchen window. Fay sighed and left the memory in the shadows.

Normally, weekends meant auctions for Fay and her aunt. Their historic house, pride of the county (her aunt said) hosted sprawling estate sales every quarter. The rest of their time was spent scouring the country. Since Fay could remember, weekends meant early mornings, hours on the road. Sitting on hard plastic chairs beside her rigid aunt. This Saturday, Fay scheduled herself to work the season closing for the local ice cream shop. She made the case to her aunt with the fiscal argument: weekend pay. She didn’t have to argue long.

Fay first saw the dresser while biking from work Friday evening. Two driveways ahead, it waited, mid-transit on a dolly. Fay was so taken with the unpretentious piece of furniture, she nearly ran over the man carrying a cardboard sign. “I didn’t need the toes on that foot, anyway,” he generously offered, rubbing the dirt from his streaked sneaker. When he walked inside, Fay laid her bike down and slipped over to the dresser. The drawers whispered in and out, belying their solid construction. Fay glanced at the sign staked at the end of the driveway. “Moving Sale. Open 8 to 5 Saturday + Sunday.”

Friday night, the dream returned. Fay could see a dresser this time, in the edges of the room, supporting picture frames and a small lamp. She felt the woman’s touch as she cupped Fay’s face in her hands, radiating a smile which reached all the way to Fay’s toes. Fay gasped and woke, her feet still twitching. The carpet. She remembered how she used to sink her toes into its softness. When she was younger, Fay had this dream frequently. “Fanciful concoction” her aunt said, polishing the hardwood floor. “Confabulation”, the therapist kindly tried to explain, years later. “Very common after trauma.”

The dresser was waiting for Fay, 7:30 Saturday morning. “We’re not open yet,” a bleary-eyed woman called preemptively from the garage. She was gripping a mug of coffee. A small child in pajamas hung off her other arm. “It’s talking to you, isn’t it?” The man from Friday asked. He was unfolding a small table and chair near the curb. Fay had been studying the dresser again, and when he spoke, she jumped and instinctively gripped the breaks. He laughed and stuck out one foot. “I wore steel toe, today.” Fay's sole thought through Saturday's shift was 5pm Sunday.

Saturday night, Fay had another dream. The smiling woman leaned to kiss her goodnight as Fay lay in bed. The woman’s black hair feathered over her shoulders and swirled into her matching dress. Fay was swathed in a soft blue quilt. The scene crumbled into the next. Fay was in black. The woman was lying in a pale blue dress, hands folded across her chest. She was no longer smiling. Fay woke to her aunt scolding her for falling asleep with the lights on, for wasting electricity, for draining their finances.

Sunday morning, Fay slipped the small zippered pouch around her neck. Her paychecks went into the joint bank account her aunt set up for “safekeeping and investment.” What went into the zippered pouch was hers. Sunday evening, she scooped the tip jar off the counter. Seven dollar bills in a nest of begrudging change. “I’m taking my fifteen minutes,” she called over her shoulder. At 5:12 p.m., Fay rolled breathlessly into the driveway of the moving sale. The woman in the garage hadn’t improved in demeanor, but had traded her mug for a laundry basket.

Before Fay could dismount, a tiny entrepreneur approached her elbow, holding a paper cup. “It’s only fifty cents,” she pleaded. The lemonade was beyond lukewarm. Fay bought it, anyway. She felt a spiritual connection to the pony-tailed figure wrestling the plastic pitcher. Then she noticed the sign propped in one of the dresser drawers: SOLD. She walked over and stroked the quiet piece of furniture.

“The sign says, ‘SOLD’,” laundry-basket woman said.

“Yes, I know. I was just – saying goodbye.” Fay stuffed her hands into her pockets. The woman snorted.

The man walked past with a stack of books under one arm, a vacuum cleaner in the other. He set them in a growing pile at the curb with a now-crinkled sign declaring, FREE. When he returned, he stood by the dresser with Fay. “I figured you’d come back, today.” He said.

Fay shrugged. “Too late.” She reached out to touch the dresser, to remember, one last time. The woman, gathering pieces of the day into the laundry basket, joined them. “This hasn’t been picked up, yet,” she groaned.

It was the man’s turn to shrug. “I was waiting for the owner.” He turned to Fay. “Is your bike rack going to hold this all the way home?”

Fay steadied herself. “This is mine? I mean,” she reached for her pouch, “Yes, I'll take it. Yes. Thank you.” She pulled out her savings and held them out. The woman eyed the roll of cash, but the man just pressed the bills back into Fay’s palm. “You might need to put some TLC into it.”

“Oh no, it’s perfect as it is.” Fay said. She wanted to hug the dresser, but contented herself with gripping the man’s hand gratefully.

He smiled. “It’s been through a bit. There are some spots that need reworking.” He looked from dresser to Fay. “Take your time,” he said softly. “The best things are worth it.”