Second chances

“Bloody creatures,” Laura mumbles under her breath. The vacant stares of the porcelain cats are getting to her and with a brisk flip of the wrist she turns the glazed figurines around so they can stare at the wall instead.

Laura picks up the big trash bag and goes back to picking up empty pill bottles, stacks of newspapers and miscellaneous debris of a life lost. Thank God for the invention of the rubber glove however uncomfortable, they even provide a bit of warmth in the cold house.

“SALE. MUST GO NOW. NEW PRICE.” The sign outside the house had said.

“Yes, it is an estate of a deceased.” The bald realtor had nodded with his head tilted to the side, face solemn. “But” he obviously didn’t linger on the sad side of life, “imagine the opportunities. A quick clean-up of the old birds stuff and - voila - your dream home.”

When Laura hesitated, Baldy had thrown a barely concealed glance at her bank statement on his desk: “Look at the price. How many affordable houses do you think are available for a single woman with your income?”

The fabric makes her skin itch as Laura allows herself a break on a couch of unknown original colour. A soon as her bottom lands on the couch cushion, a cloud of dust shoots up around her, making her cough. She sighs and checks her watch. At the speed the clean-up is going, she should be checking a calendar instead. She tries to capture some energy from the fantasy of the dream house scenario, but the resentment and frustration with this house and its former inhabitant gets in the way. Who eats that many pills anyway? Who decorates their house with endless lines of hand painted pictures of animals? Theres a particular hideous colourful one of a lion in the kitchen. She can’t wait to free the walls and slap some white paint on them.

Lauras new next-door neighbour had by way of greeting the newcomer gone into great details with a barely held breath about the day the police had taken away the decomposing body and what the neighbour was sure was both drugs and worse. The neighbour’s sensationalism might accidentally not have been that far off.

Gathering her strength, Laura fights her way out of the couch. The charity shop people are coming by tomorrow, and they were adamant that they were NOT a cleaning crew, so if Laura wants their help, the house needs to be accessible.

She’s getting used to the sticky, slightly claustrophobic and protective sense of the rubber gloves when a shout startles her.

“Hello?” It’s a male voice, coming from the outside.

Laura rubs the grime off the window, making it even dirtier. All she can see is an outline of a man in a light blue shirt and dark blue shorts.

“Is this number 371?” He calls out.

Laura rips off the rubber gloves, her fingers already pruny and heads for the heavy front door.

A shiver runs through her as the first rush of warm air collides with her skin.

“Why is the letter slot nailed shot?” He asks over the swoosh swoosh of cars going by on the road.

Laura shrugs her shoulders.

“Your guess is a good as mine.”

“Are you miss Adriana Landesman?” The mailman squints at a thick cream coloured envelope in his hand, a slight breeze ruffling his dark curls. Laura’s heart squeezes in her chest. Toms’ hair would do that exact wave when the wind got hold of his hair. Then he would laugh and make a futile attempt to flatten it. She shakes her head. Forget it. Breaking up with him was the right thing to do. It was.

Laura drags herself back to the question aimed at her.

“No, that would be the former resident,” she informs her blue clad inquisitor.

“Oh, ok.” He taps the stamp covered envelope against his hand.

He smiles at her like he just had the best idea since the invention of the wheel.

“Do you know where she moved to? You know. A forwarding address?”

Laura scrunches her nose and looks away at the one remaining yellow flower in the garden.

“The local morgue,” she explains.

The mailman’s eyes widen, and he takes a step back. He holds the letter away from his body like it’s about to bite him. Tom would never flinch like that.

“What do I do with this then?” His voice an octave higher than a second ago.

“Throw it away, take it back, stuff it up your…” Laura stops herself before the words leaves her lips. The mailman didn’t make her buy this godforsaken house all alone. That was her own glorious doing.

She holds out her hand.

“I can give it to the police.”

“The police?!”

“Or a coroner, a lawyer, whoever…” she waves her outstretched hand about in small circles.

The thick crisp envelope lands in her hand and before she even registers the high quality of the paper, the courageous mailman is sprinting down the garden path, tripping over a broken flagstone on his way, not slowing down until he’s safely back at the sidewalk.

Laura throws the letter in the pile on a three-legged blue table in the hall and goes back to excavating the house.

Every time she passes the wobbly blue table with another bag of junk to be thrown out, the envelope catches her eye. It stands out between the leaflets, the unopened window envelopes and old newspapers. Like a nugget of gold surrounded by pebble. On the fifth pass, Laura pauses and picks it up. It’s illegal to open mail addressed to other people, she knows that, but surely touching it is ok? It is heavy, the paper soft on her fingers, handwritten with a dark blue pen, little curls decorating the capital letters. Apparently, it is from someone called Henry Sizemore. A little smile creep up on her. Tom would have laughed at her, reminded her what killed the cat. But would he have opened it?

Laura puts the kettle on and stretches her sore back. Somehow the envelope is now lying on the kitchen table. She pries open the kitchen window to let in some warm air and comfortable noise of neighbours going by their business. What if it’s important that someone knows what’s inside the letter? What if it’s a wedding invitation? And what if it got sent to the wrong Miss Adriana? Or delivered to the wrong place (That mailman seemed capable of all sorts of bloopers.)? What if the one who is supposed to get the invitation doesn’t get it and they get angry, and the family doesn’t speak to each other for years and….

Curiosity clamps a hand over the mouth of what is left of Lauras conscience. 

The flap opens easy enough and the paper turns out to be just as delicious to touch as the envelope. The handwriting is smaller, but the same.

Laura sips her tea and starts reading.

“Dear Adriana (or do you still go by Addie?)

 I don’t know if you remember me (Henry Sizemore), but I’m going to take a chance for once and send you this letter. (If the letter reaches the wrong Adriana Landesman, I apologize in advance). You always said that I tend to ramble on (my children say the same, strange right?) so the letter will probably be too long for your liking, but here goes.

Isn’t the internet a wonderful thing? You can buy stuff and meet old friends on Facebook. I’m not on Facebook, but my son sometimes lets me borrow his “account” to say hello to old army mates and classmates. It’s great fun.

You don’t seem to be on any of the “social mediums”. I have looked up the address of your family’s old house on the Google Maps and as far as I can see nobody is home. (Or maybe just the day the google picture was taken, I’m not quite sure how it works). But I have googled your name, and did you know there are 187 Adriana Landsman’s living in the US? At least one of them is a psychic and I had a hard time explaining to my family why we suddenly got adverts for fortune-tellers and hand readers! I stopped searching for your name after that.”

Laura empties her cup of sweet tea and discards her stickly sweater.

“I was married for thirty years, and we had four sons. My wife passed away two years ago, and the youngest boy has just moved out, so now it is just me, Tintin and Haddock - the dogs. You wouldn’t like the mutts (remember you being rather fond of cats?), but I spoil them rotten.”

Laura finds herself nodding. The hand painted pictures are all of some kind of animal in the feline family, cats, lions, tigers and so on. She hadn’t noticed before.

I married Linda after I was discharged (honourably, thank you very much) from the army. She was a sweet and kind woman who was a good mother to our sons. I wonder if you had children. I always thought you would make a wonderful mother. A bit strict, but the kind children and their friends would seek out when they needed help with their heartaches and what clothes to wear.

“Adriana, what happened to you?” Laura whispers.

She had spent two days going through the late woman’s wardrobe and not one item made it to the charity shop.

“I must admit that I often wondered how your life turned out after we split. Did you follow your passion and try to make a living as a painter? (Remember how we used to go to the Zoo and make up stories about the animals and you would paint beautiful pictures of them when we came home?) Or did you take your parents advice and go to law school? I understand their wish for a secure future for you a lot better now than I did when I was nineteen. I hope whatever you did made you happy.

And I also need you to know that I never blamed you for choosing the way you did. You were young and it was too scary for you to choose me over your family. But I will always resent that your parents didn’t give me a chance just because I was poor, and my father didn’t speak English.

The window is still open, but it’s like the whole neighbourhood has gone quiet.

“The army was good for me. I don’t know if you ever wondered what happened to me after the night of the breakup, but the army was a good place. I was young and angry and felt so unfairly treated by your family that I probably would have ended up in jail or doing drugs. But the CO (that is short for commanding officer) had seen hundreds of disillusioned young men. Thanks to him I suddenly had friends, discipline, and a purpose. Those were happy years.

A bit of bile burns Lauras throat thinking of her neighbours gleeful account of the body being carried out and the police confiscating drugs. Please don’t let that be true.

“You probably wonder how I found your address. The secret is that I didn’t. I can picture you rolling your eyes and asking me to get on with it (he he). Did I tell you there are 187 women in the US called Adriana Landesman? (To all the other Adriana Landesman’s, again I sincerely apologize. There is only one Adriana for me.) So yes, I have sent this letter to 187 women and I know that 186 of them will think that I am weird (maybe all 187, I know), but the thing is…”

A knock on the window makes Laura pee a little bit in her pants. Her heart thumbs and it takes a second for her body to stop sending alert messages around her bloodstream.

“What?” she snarls at the window.

“Hello? Miss?”

The courageous mailman is back. Laura lightly bends over and bangs her forehead against the table.

“You didn’t answer the door.” He persists. “Can you come out?”

Laura shoves Henrys letter under an empty carton of cigarettes and drags herself to the front door. 

Laura leans on the door frame and folds her arms over her chest.

“Yes?”

The mailman scratches his neck, the skin is red and irritated.

“I need the letter back.”

Laura lifts an eyebrow at him and hugs herself tighter. He can’t take the letter. It would be like someone throwing a bucket of water on a fire the minute it has started warming up her chilly bones.

“My boss says I can’t just leave the letter with you. It’s against the protocol.”

“Against the protocol?” Lucy challenges him, scrambling for an excuse, a lie, a slide of hand to hold on to the letter.

“Yes, there are laws and protocols about letters.”

“But you delivered it to the right address. I’m sure that’s following the protocol.” Laura starts moving backwards into the house, signalling the matter is dealt with now.

Wonder boy in blue follows her.

“No, it has to be delivered to the right PERSON, you see.”

Laura clamps a hand over the handwritten sign on the front door with her name on it.

“And how do you know I’m not Adriana Landesman?”

The mailman squints at her.

“But what you said about the morgue? And the police?”

Maybe he is not that stupid.

Laura tilts her head.

“I burned it, I’m really sorry.”

She pushes the door from the inside to close it, but a size ten hiking boot gets in the way.

“Hey!” Laura objects.

“I don’t smell any smoke.” He says, sniffing the air.

“You can’t come in!” Laura yells at him.

He lifts up his palms and retreats immediately.

“Sorry, sorry. But I really need it back. I can’t lose another job,” he sniffles.

Laura sighs.

“How long have you had this job?”

The mailman’s lower lip trembles.

“Three days and I have already gotten one warning.” He looks at Laura like a lost puppy and she can almost feel her armour rip at the seams.

Laura points toward the kitchen with her chin.

“It’s in here.”

He follows her to the kitchen and sits down at the chair she points at.

“I just need to finish it,” she says.

“You opened it?” Laura didn’t know human eyes could expand that quickly.

She shrugs.

“Where is it? Put it back in the envelope.” Mr Mailman says in a stern voice. His likeness to Tom is back. Stop thinking about him!

“Just. Read it.”

“But…”

“Read it and I promise you can take it with you afterwards.”

Laura extracts the letter from beneath the empty carton. Henrys words deserves to be read.

After what must be an eternity or two, the man/boy hands her the page. His eyes are brimming with tears.

“What is “the thing”?“ He asks.

Laura picks up the second page and reads out loud.

“The thing is that I never forgot you.”

A loud sigh leaves the mailman’s lips.

“Don’t get me wrong, I was very fond of my wife, but you just always remained there in the back of my head. Thousands and thousands of times I thought about what you would think about this and that. Would you like the names I gave my children, or would you think they were too posh? Would you like the way I look in my favourite blue shirt? And what would you say about my neighbours new and much younger wife?”

Laura swallows a lump in her throat.

“I’m droning on. So. If you are happily married, then just throw this letter away or have a good laugh about it with your significant other. But if you are not, maybe you would like to get in touch?

Life goes by so fast and if there’s a chance to spend just a few of them with the one you love, then you are luckier than most.

Please let me know what you think.

Yours forever.

Henry.”

The quiet following the last words expands and fills up the kitchen. For a little while Laura just sits there, inhaling Henrys love for Adriana with every breath. Her skin tingles.

A dog barks outside breaking the spell. Reluctantly she folds the pages and stuff them into the envelope with care.

She hands it to the mailman. His eyes are red.

“He doesn’t know that she’s dead.” he states quietly.

Laura shakes her head.

“I don’t see how he could know. He must have been looking for her for years.”

The mailman stands up and tucks the letter into his bag.

“Thank you for giving it back to me.”

A half-crooked smile sneaks up on Lauras lips.

“Try not to get any more warnings this week.”

The beep beep of the phone does nothing to calm Lauras thumping heart. Her fingers shook as she dialled the familiar number and all she can do now is wait and see if he will pick up. The setting sun shines through the kitchen window, highlighting the colourful picture of a lion hanging on the kitchen wall. It’s crooked. Laura rubs a bit of dirt off its frame and straightens it.

“It’s Tom”

Laura smiles and takes a breath.

“I think I made a mistake.”