Writing Gallery

The door is the only one in the hallway without a welcome mat. Andrea could have guessed from the woman’s tone. Just leave them on the doorstep. And don’t expect a tip. Andrea knocks anyways. Some scuffles from behind the closed door, a muffled cough, and then it opens a crack, the security chain still latched. “What do you want?” A weathered face peers out from the dim light, wisps of white hair like low hanging clouds and soft, gray eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Umm, I’m Andrea, I have your groceries here with me. Would you like me to bring them inside fo-” The door slams loudly in her face. “Okay then.” Andrea bends down and places the half-dozen bags at her feet. “See you next week,” she whispers to the gold numbers on the door. - By her third trip, when the leaves are burnt crimson and hang by tendrils to sinewy branches, the woman with the white hair behind the door lets her in. Andrea places the groceries atop the wooden table in the kitchen. With a quick glance she can see the apartment is small, cramped. There’s music quietly filling the air from a record player in the corner and shelves of pictures, knick-knacks, and books adorning every open space on the walls. It makes her sad to realize the woman is all alone. She turns, trying to make it seem like she wasn’t being nosy. But Andrea was naturally curious. She’d been wondering about the occupant of apartment 201 since that first day. What she was like. Why she was so unwelcoming, as the woman who hired her had alluded to. What sorts of things she treasured. The places she’d been. If she had a family. “Just because you’re standing there, doesn’t mean I’m going to give you more money.” Heat rises to Andrea’s cheeks. She’d lingered too long, too curious like her mother always said she was. “Oh no, I don’t want your money.” The old woman scoffs. A faint scent of cigarette smoke hangs in the air. “That’s all anybody wants. And I don’t have any.” Andrea smiles awkwardly, rising up on the toes of her shoes then rocking back to her heels. The blue green sweater the ornery woman wears is beautiful, the embroidery on the front more like a painting than a piece of clothing. “So…have you always lived here?” Gray eyes pierce brown ones. “Have I given you any indication at all that I want to have a conversation?” “Nope, uh, so sorry. See you next week, Miss…?” Andrea leaves the end of the statement open, waiting for the woman to supply an answer. “Mrs. Farrell. Though I haven’t been Mrs. Farrell for a long time. Dorothy will do. Goodbye.” The door closes loudly behind Andrea. Checking her watch, she knows she must hurry to make it to class on time. - Snow settles in mounds on the sidewalks and holiday decorations hang in every shop window. Andrea stamps the icy sludge from her boots and rings the doorbell. Dorothy opens obligingly and ushers the young girl inside. There is a steaming cup of tea on the table next to where Andrea deposits her usual grocery bags. “No class today, we’re off for the holidays now,” Andrea offers, tea in hand. There’s an acknowledged hum from the older woman as she places the last packaged meal in her freezer. “I brought you something.” Andrea pulls a small card from her jacket pocket and holds it out to Dorothy. It hangs there in the space between them for a full minute, neither one quite knowing what to say. Finally, Dorothy nods and takes the offered card. “Thank you, Andrea.” It is only the second holiday card Dorothy receives that year, the first coming from her daughter. She adds it to her entryway table after the girl departs. Her apartment doesn’t seem as empty with it there. - Checking her watch, Dorothy sees the big hand meet the little hand at twelve. Her eyes dart to her front door, waiting. After only a few breaths in and out, she hears the loud chirp of the bell. Andrea waltzes in with the bags, smelling of fresh flowers and sunshine. There is a twinkle in her eye as she pulls a bouquet of roses out from behind her back. Dorothy chuckles in surprise and gives the girl a smile. “Oh, they’re lovely. Thank you.” They are her favorite kind. With a turn of a dial, music glides into the apartment. It is the kind of music she used to dance to, many sunrises and freckles ago. When she was young, when she still dreamed she could be anything she wanted. “Why aren’t you smiling?” Andrea is holding up a photo, one Dorothy hardly looks at anymore. There is a grinning child standing between a rather serious looking couple. The man appears focused, bent down and pointing his finger in the direction of the camera, as if to give instruction to the young girl. The woman is still, a hand on the girl’s shoulder, no trace of joy on her face. With a quick sweep, Andrea notices that in all the photos on the wall, there is only one of Dorothy smiling. Her wedding day. “You aren’t smiling in any of these…” Dorothy feels an icy fist settle behind her sternum. Her throat is tight, her tongue heavy. How to explain it to someone with their whole life ahead of them? Unencumbered by grief or responsibilities? Are there words to convey the dreams that died, excruciatingly slow, the helplessness, how she drowned in it, the fact that her life was lived for all others but her? “Another time, perhaps. Thank you for the flowers, Andrea. They are a wonderful birthday present.” - “It’s next week, and you don’t have to go if you don’t want to, but I got an extra seat next to my parents just in case, and it might be really long and insufferably hot-” Dorothy places a warm hand atop Andrea’s. They sit comfortably at the kitchen table, lemonade fills their glasses and happiness in their eyes. “I would love to attend your graduation, my dear. I never went to school myself and would enjoy the outing.” “You didn’t go to college?” Dorothy smiles sadly, sipping her drink to hide the painful way her jaw tightens. “I wanted to. Planned to. Just wasn’t in the cards for me.” Andrea nods in understanding. “Right, because you got married. And had your daughter.” “Life passed me by,” Dorothy adds as a way of confirming Andrea’s statement. “So, you mustn’t let it pass you by, child.” There’s a ferocity to the old woman’s gray eyes now. “You have so much ahead of you. Your journalism degree and your internship and your friends. Run fast and run hard and don’t stop dreaming. Don’t put anything off and don’t put your life on hold for anyone. A woman can be anything now.” Dorothy stops before the waver in her voice becomes too noticeable. As she said the words to the young girl with the curly hair and constellations of freckles, she wished she could tell it to the serious woman in the photos on the wall. She may not have lived the life she planned for herself, but Dorothy knew that Andrea had magic in her future. They walk to the door, passing cards on the table and flowers in vases, all from Andrea. Life came back to the apartment the day she came knocking. “Next Saturday, 10 a.m. Don’t forget now!” There’s a smile on Andrea’s face, the smile you have when your whole life is ahead and you can’t wait to see what comes next. A joyful faith, a childlike wonder. “I won’t, dear. See you Wednesday as usual, and pick up a cake to celebrate. My treat.” The door closes, the golden numbers catch the light, and Andrea walks away. - The big hand and little hand meet at the top of her watch. Dorothy glances to the door, waiting for the bell to ring like it had every week since the previous fall. But no sound comes. She gives it a few minutes. Maybe picking up a cake at the store was taking longer than expected. Maybe there was traffic. Maybe a hundred, thousand possibilities for why Andrea was late for the first time in 34 weeks. After an hour, Dorothy can feel worry start to worm around in her veins and collect in her stomach. It’s heavy. Bitter. Drowning her on dry land. From a drawer in her entryway table, she pulls out an unused cell phone. A number tucked away in her address book, a few clumsy taps on the overly large number keys, and the line rings. And rings. And rings. Her sweet voice is there! But it is her voicemail, asking the caller to leave a message and she’ll get back to them. Dorothy hangs up. Paces down her hallway. The jazz music she puts on sounds distorted and sad, so she shuts the record player off. The flowers wilt in their pots. After three hours, Dorothy breaks down and calls her daughter. No, she doesn’t know why her groceries weren’t delivered. And no, she didn’t know how to get in touch with the girl’s supervisor. But yes, mom, she’d figure it out. There’s a promise to call later and catch up and one to visit soon. But both women know these to be mere words. The bright summer sun sets low in the sky, painting the scene outside Dorothy’s window in pinks and oranges and purples. Tonight she can’t stand to look at it. Still her phone does not ring. Still there is no chime of the doorbell. Dorothy waits all night. - Only later does she find out what happened that cloudless, warm afternoon. A car had run a red light, the driver hadn’t been paying attention. Horns blared, someone screamed. White roses splattered crimson. - Dorothy sets a bouquet of sunflowers atop a cold stone a year to the day afterwards. She only spends a few moments here, knowing she can’t monopolize the memory of this flame snuffed out too soon. Others grieved and still grieve, the breadth and depth of their connection dwarfing hers by comparison. The old woman pats the headstone and runs her fingers along the name inscribed on its surface. Clinical. Detached. So different from the woman for whom it is for. Dorothy had found herself lurking in those young brown eyes, all her unpursued dreams and broken promises, the future she had always wanted. For a brief moment, she envisioned those heartaches mended, those compromises retracted. She would live because Andrea would. Life, however, is cruel. Brutal. It takes in places it shouldn’t. Nothing now will change what happened that day. Too short a life ended, too long a life continued. Entirely unexpectedly, Dorothy knew that Andrea had saved her. That first knock on the door, and every visit afterward, pulled Dorothy from some far-off place. Pulled her back to humanity, to warmth, to love. For too long she’d toiled in loneliness and self-pity, feeling forgotten and ignored by the world she’d given so much to. But Andrea had seen her. Andrea had cared for her. And Dorothy never got the chance to thank her. A chime from her pocket brings the morning back into startling clarity. Of course, she had somewhere to be. A long overdue meeting, a beginning blossoming from a brutal ending. With one final glance at the ghostly placeholder, the old woman with the white hair turns on her heel, walking slowly away from the flowers on the ground and the surreptitious silence of the stones.