Janice Kay - Back Against The Wall

This box, though... The clothes had just been dumped in it. Beth poked a little and realized that not only were these adult-size but each garment was still hooked on a clothes hanger. She reached in and lifted out a blouse. Pale pink with subtle white stripes. Mom had loved pink. She wore a lot of it. Petite, blonde and blue-eyed, like Emily, Christine Marshall had embodied femininity.

Beth was vaguely aware that Matt was slowly turning to her. “I remember this blouse,” she whispered.

He swore and took a couple of steps to look into the box. He started to reach for a dress but pulled his hand back. “It’s the clothes she didn’t take. Dad must have wanted them out of sight.”

Beth’s stomach tightened. Even her father had emerged from his alternate world briefly when his wife disappeared. She’d left Word open on the computer with a note explaining that she was leaving him and she’d be in touch when she was settled. After that...nothing.

Dad had called the police, who hadn’t been interested. Christine had taken her purse, her birth control pills out of the medicine cabinet, some of her makeup and jewelry. Obviously, she’d left voluntarily.

Beth, Matt and Emily had refused to believe she would do that. Leave Dad, sure. She’d taken to yelling at him a lot. But she wouldn’t have abandoned her children. She, of all people, had known how inadequate he was as a parent. For a long time Beth, at least, had held on to the belief that Mom would fight for custody once she had a new job and someplace to live.

“She loved this blouse.” Beth could hardly take her eyes off it. “Why didn’t she take more of her clothes?”

“Because she left in a hurry?” Matt suggested, old anger roughening his voice. “Maybe she thought she’d try a new style for a new man.”

“Maybe.” Seeing her sister’s distress, she shook herself. “Well. This is sort of creepy, but I can see why Dad didn’t want to get rid of everything.”

“I’ll bet I’m the same size she was.” Emily stepped forward. “There might be clothes I’d like.”

Not even thinking it through, Beth dropped the blouse back into the box and slapped the flaps closed. “No.”

Looking indignant, her sister said, “What do you mean, no?”

Matt turned on her. “Don’t you speak English? She means no. N.O.”

“Don’t talk to me that way.”

Beth shut her eyes and sought her equilibrium. A couple deep breaths, and she was back. “Emily, I hate the idea of seeing you in some shirt I associate with her, and obviously Matt feels the same.”

“Dumpster,” he said, sounding hard.

Beth shook her head. “Can we just set this aside? Keep it for now?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just...don’t want to make that decision yet. Anyway...” She hesitated. “Her clothes were nice. When we do get rid of them, they should go to a thrift store or maybe a women’s shelter.” She didn’t include garage sale. What if she breathed in the faint scent of her mother while she was handling her mother’s clothes. Attaching little price tags. The idea made her shiver.

He frowned at her but gave an abrupt nod. “Up to you.” Matt went back to the box of books he’d been looking at one by one.

Logically enough—if anything about this was logical—Beth found half a dozen more boxes filled with her mother’s stuff in the same vicinity. Shoes, too, of course, but mostly clothes, including one that had lingerie on top. She closed that box really fast. Even the thrift store wouldn’t want old, used panties and bras. She was tempted to write Toss in big black letters on the side but knew she ought to dig deeper in the box before she did that.

Matt and even Emily stayed away from the section of the garage where Beth was working. Emily kept stealing wary glances at her, and no wonder. She was used to a calm, competent, I-can-solve-all-problems sister, not one who freaked at the sight of a pink blouse.

Beth uncovered Mom’s jewelry box and couldn’t resist peeking inside. Tangled chains were jumbled with earrings and bracelets. Mom had obviously taken some of her nicer pieces, except...was that a real diamond in a stud earring? Beth didn’t remember her mother wearing those. After a moment, she put the box back, setting it on top. She’d want to go through this later. Eventually. There might be something in here that Emily would like as a keepsake. The rest...well, anything that wasn’t too familiar or particularly valuable could go to the thrift store.

A wave of exhaustion and discouragement hit her. After a full day yesterday, her muscles ached, too. Her back to Matt and Emily, Beth leaned against the workbench. What happened to her plan to go through everything, make brisk decisions, be done with it?

Speed bump, she told herself. They’d been moving along pretty well. She’d been right that most of what they’d found would be useful to someone. Matt had agreed to ask his wife if she’d like to go through the boxes of children’s clothes before they passed them on. She was pregnant with their first baby.

The next box held things Beth didn’t really recognize but guessed to have been from Mom and Dad’s bedroom. She opened a stiff portfolio to find unframed art prints. Worth looking at later.

Finally, she shoved all the remaining boxes associated with Mom back under and on top of the built-in workbench, which her father would never use. Home repair was not on his list of skills. She’d left the window above the workbench unblocked, making a mental note to come back with some glass cleaner. Even so, the light falling through the window helped.

Pulling herself together, she decided to tackle the things piled against the wall beside the workbench next. An ancient Weedwacker. Could it have come with the house? Several fans on stands, wrapped in white plastic trash bags, must have been out here forever. A folded stepladder. More boxes.

Beth sighed.

Wallboard had covered the garage walls as long as she could remember, which meant it was discolored and battered. Nobody had ever taped or spackled or painted out here. She could just see wall-hung shelves on the other side of the garage. Probably that was where the oldest stuff was. Anybody would fill shelves before starting to pile junk on the floor, right?

Strange, though—the one sheet of wallboard in front of her looked a little different from the rest. Not really clean, but cleaner, except for some gross but long-dry stains at the bottom. None of the dings, either. Maybe Mom and Dad had had it replaced at some point. If so, it had to have been put up shortly before the piles grew in front of it, protecting it. Except for a big hole bashed into it six or seven feet up. Something had probably smacked it. The extension ladder lying on a sheet of plywood suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the garage, right above the tracks and motor for the automatic garage door opener? Maybe. It would have been awkward to maneuver.

She doubted her father even knew he owned a tall ladder. He certainly wouldn’t have any use for it. Once upon a time, Mom had nagged him into occasional tasks like painting. Later, if something obviously needed doing, he hired someone. Well, Beth hired someone. He’d look surprised but pay the bill without complaining.

Back to work.

Fans—thrift store. Or garage sale, if she had one. Stepladder—who didn’t need one? If Dad didn’t want it, she’d take it. The Weedwacker? It could probably be recycled, even rusty.

For some reason, the gaping hole kept drawing her gaze. Matt and Emily had moved their squabbling outside. They wouldn’t see her give in to an inexplicable compulsion. She unfolded the stepladder and climbed up on it.

A flashlight would have helped, but at least the window was close. Beth angled her head to see down inside the wall. Her heart began to drum at the sight of something...