My Sweet Annie

15

I closed up Gran's diary, my stomach leaden. I'd known my grandfather had died when Mom was a baby, and that it had been a very premature heart attack. But I hadn't known that it had been at Christmastime. That it had happened here, at the house. That he'd broken his neck. That Gran had witnessed it.

I looked down at the notebook, stroking my thumbs along the edges. A part of me felt like I was holding her hand. I wished that I could.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered. "Oh, Gran."

***

On Sunday, as soon as I turned onto my side in bed and opened my eyes, I thought, I need to start going through Gran's things. I had decided that by the time I called the estate sale people, I wanted to be able to turn the reins over—and that meant a lot of work had to happen before then.

I got up, dressed, made coffee, and had a couple of pieces of toast. Thus fueled for the work ahead, I went into Gran's bedroom, which was, like the rest of the house, frozen in time.

Almost the entire house was wallpapered. In Gran's room the walls were a shade of blue with a large motif of pink and green florals, and the curtains were pale blue lace. The bedroom furniture was all of a single set in dark wood, and the mirror over the dresser had a boxy frame with shelves on the sides. In the corner was a lumpy armchair with two square pillows, one large and one small, both in crocheted covers. Draped over the arm of the chair was an apple green sweater. Several books were stacked on the nightstand next to an alarm clock with a glowing red face. The mattress was bare.

During my cleaning spree the day before, I had stayed away from this room, as well as the studio. Both had felt like too much to handle. The surfaces of the furniture were pale with a thin layer of dust, and the room smelled a little stale.

I stood just inside the doorway, unable to help wondering how long Gran had been here before Edith had found her. What had happened to the sheets and comforter? I stared at the mattress, unable to make sense of it. It was so incongruous in a house that was so lived in, so comfortable.

Bare mattresses didn't belong in grandmothers' houses.

I suddenly did not want to be in Gran's room. The atmosphere had become oppressive, grief and dread unfolding, taking up space and forcing the air out of the room. It was hard to breathe.

"Okay," I whispered, tearing my gaze away from the bed. "Maybe this is too s—..."

My attention snagged on a figure standing to the left of the bed in the corner of the room.

The strength went out of me. I literally dropped to the floor, unable even to scream. I scrambled back across an old, threadbare rug, knocking the door with my shoulder—knocking it the wrong way, knocking it closed, or close to. I turned and fumbled it back open, dragging myself to my feet with a death grip on the handle, and looked over my shoulder just once as I fled—

Just once, and briefly, but long enough to see that nothing was there.

I was outside, standing on the gravel drive, when the tears started. I could not breathe. My body was gasping, desperate for air, but my lungs were half their usual size and could not fill up with enough air. I was shaking, heat prickling under my arms and at the small of my back, the breeze chilling the sweat on my face.

"Okay. Okay. Okay," I gasped, sinking down onto my knees right there on the gravel. "Okay. Okay."

I didn't know what to do. I got my phone out of my pocket and tried several times to unlock it with my fingerprint, but it didn't work and prompted me for my PIN. I had to tap it in twice before my phone unlocked. When I opened the phone app, I pressed without thinking on Colson's name.