Just Hit 'Send' By Grasshopper

Just Hit 'Send' - The Happy Years by Grasshopper Ch. 11

Mrs. Kessell peered out her white lace curtains at the house across the street. A good woman, a Christian woman, a widow of two years who attended church every Sunday, gave food to the needy, worried about her children and prayed every night for the world to be a safe place again.

Her husband, George, had been a stern man, unbendable if it wasn't within his strict moral value code. Mary Kessell had moved directly from being her father's daughter to her husband's wife. No in between, no search for herself in all the years of her life. Their beliefs, their values had been hers.

She remembered the former owners, the older man, Mr. Collins, in the wheelchair, and his companion, Mr. Treadway. She and her husband had watched the beautiful house on the beach being built and she had often gone over in the twilight, after the builders had driven away, to just walk through the rooms. As the house neared completion, she would wait until the man in overalls, covered with bright splashes of paint left in his old jeep and she would go to see his work. She loved the big room with the murals of other countries, places she would never see. She longed to ask about them. She knew she never would.

Her husband said they couldn't associate with the men because they were not good Christian people. He showed her passages in the bible that he said made them bad. George called them 'queers' and other nasty names. She cringed whenever he used those words, but Mary never said anything, never argued. She knew, in her heart, that she didn't feel that way, but, for Mary Kessell, there was no rocking of the boat, no show of strength. She lived in her husband's world just as she had lived in her father's.

When Mr. Treadway died, she had wanted to take a casserole over as she always did for grieving people, but her husband had forbidden her. He said they were blasphemers and she was not to help in any way. He said other things that Mary couldn't accept...that Mr. Treadway was in hell and that Mr. Collins would be there soon enough. Mary always wanted to argue that her God, the God that loved all his creations, would not punish someone for being what he had created. Her God was a loving God. Her God had made a place for Mr. Treadway.

She longed to say that she wondered how God would look at George Kessell when he stood before the gates, but she never did. Would it have done a bit of good?

Mary watched the quiet take over the house across the street, saw the day Mr. Collins was taken away. She never knew where he went; to his family she hoped. They had never spoken, but she hoped he was happy.

The house across the street stood empty for over a year. She found that she missed the wondering. Her life became more insular. George became ill. He died one day, digging weeds in the garden. Everyone said it was a good thing; that he was with God now. Mary wondered what he had said when he had finally met Mr. Treadway; if he had been ashamed.

She watched the cars drive along the street and the sun rise every morning over the ocean. She walked through the yard of the house and sat on the beach side porch to watch the gulls swoop and soar. She even peeped in the windows, into her favorite room, to see the sun turn the scenes of Tuscany and Paris and Monterey to gold. There had been love in this house, Mary was sure of it, so much more than in hers.

Regret filled her. She felt a loneliness in this beautiful house now, in these rooms, as if they were waiting.

One day, as she swept the light dusting of snow off of her front porch, a car drove up and three people climbed out. What a beautiful family, all that blond hair and spirit, all that excitement and joy. She could hear the voices as they drifted across the street.

"It's perfect, Jordy!"
"It's just like the painting!"
"Daddy, Prince Sadness will come now?"

She watched the beautiful little boy race all around the yard, his mittened hands waving and his tasseled wool cap bobbing. He found the ramp and she could see him run up and down. She wondered if the house had found new people. Mary felt very protective of the house across the street. Watching these three, she hoped so.