For Tavie,
on the occasion of her twenty-second
birthday, whose capacity for love and
forgiveness astounds me on a daily basis.
Susan
by
Rynn A. Lemieux
The woods were still. It was the kind of quiet that came from extended abandonment and disuse. The crowded tangle of bushes and branches did not allow entry to even the smallest of child who was looking for a place to play or make a fort. Lack of suitable branches for nesting caused the birds to make their homes in the fir trees on the hills surrounding the woods where their songs were heard from dawn til dusk. Even the buzz of insects seemed far away. It was as if sound did not penetrate the boundaries of the woods.
With a loud roar the chain saws cut into the undergrowth, a rudimentary path was made and the men worked their way in. Over a hundred years of clenched tranquility turned into overblown activity within the matter of minutes.
Over the course of a week spindly trees were cut down, cut up, and carted away. Full, dense bushes were torn apart and burned. Before long all that was left to do was to pull up the stumps and till the earth.
Guy Williams watched the progress from the service road. The men did good, fast work; he would make sure that to see that it showed in their pay at the end of the job.
At the end of the week the field was finally tilled into neat rows.
* * *
The woman who sat on the couch leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. Every so often she nodded as if someone were talking to her and she was listening intently. The only sounds came through the open window; the chirp of crickets and an occasional snap of a bug being fried in the Bug Zapper that hung on the porch.
There was man who stood in the doorway fidgeting with impatience. He started to speak only to have the woman hold up a finger to him. After listening a few more seconds she nodded with finality.
"She says that she can't find her chiffonnier," she said, then asked, "What's a chiffonnier?"
The man was speechless for a moment then said, "It's a kind of wardrobe. That was my grandmother's, how did you know about it?"
"Alison told me."
"That's my granny's name!" For someone who had called to have her come and take care of the mysterious foot steps and slamming doors, this man was easily flabbergasted.
"I'll bet your problems started right after you moved that wardrobe. Am I right?"
"I'm not sure. I guess."
"It doesn't matter. Alison says that she has been all over the house but she can't find it. Where is it?"
"It's in the attic."
They climbed the stairs up to the second story.
"It weighed a ton -- it took three of us to get it up the stairs. I almost junked it -- good thing I didn't." The man smiled back over his shoulder.
From there they moved to the back of the house for the stairs to the attic. The woman stopped and looked behind her. "She doesn't know where we're going. Is this a new floor?"
"Yeah, about five years ago we added an attic. I was glad for the space, we needed it for storage when Mary decided to redecorate earlier this year."
"That's why she couldn't find it. She doesn't see the house as it is, she sees it as it was."
The woman said, "Come on Alison, it's all right."
Once in the attic and in the presence of the ornate wardrobe, the feeling tension, like the air before a thunderstorm, eased.
"She says that there is something that you might want under the bottom drawer."
"There isn't anything in there, I had the drawer out when we moved it."
The tension was back, it filled the air making the woman struggle for breath.
"You might want to look to be sure, turning away a gift from the other side is never a good idea."
He slid out the drawer and flipped it over. "See, nothing."
"Under it," the woman snapped.
He reached in and found a small indent toward the back that allowed him to lift up a panel of wood which then slid out. Underneath was a compartment. When his fingers touched the coins tightly compacted inside, he turned back to the woman to find that she had gone.
"Thank you, Granny Alison," he said to the seemingly empty room.
Oh, Susan, you were clued in,
You knew just how this thing would go.
A prognosis that was hopeless,
From the very first domino.
I guess I see it all in hindsight.
I tried to keep it all in perspective despite,
The flash of the fuse the smell of cordite.
Now I'm in this place again
And I know he can't come in to get me.
And someday he will live to regret me.
Oh, Susan, I can see it now.
Susan, by Aimee Mann