The Secret Letters by Abby Bardi Read Free Book Online Page A

off work?”
    â€œIt’s Friday at three.”
    â€œFUCK. I can’t believe her sometimes.”
    â€œBelieve.” This was Baltimore’s motto, so everyone made fun of it. “And here’s the best part. She wants the house packed up by then, so we can have it painted and put it on the market.”
    I looked around the kitchen. Old Tupperware, chipped ceramic ducks, wall placards some moron thought were funny, dirty plastic flowers. Junk on every surface, and in a bunch of boxes, more junk. “Is the whole house like this?”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œI guess you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
    She punched me on the arm, hard.
    ***
    For the next few days, every chance I got, I’d go over to my mother’s house to pack and clean. After the first five minutes, I began to seriously question if we would ever get everything out of there. I’d go into the sewing room, aka Norma’s old bedroom, and after I’d filled a dozen boxes with fabric, thread, seventeen tape measures, and enough needles to re-quill a porcupine, the room would look like no one had touched it.
    â€œAnd she hasn’t even sewed since the ’70s,” I complained to Pam as we sat on the patio. Ricky’s girlfriend Star had made us lunch again, consisting of little chunks of tofu and wilted lettuce wrapped in a stale, green tortilla. “Why have a sewing room?”
    â€œMaybe she was planning to make us all matching outfits again.” She took a drink of whatever it was Star had poured into our glasses, then shuddered. I tried it: it tasted like Elmer’s Glue. “I found a box of baby clothes under the bed in the guest room,” she added.
    The guest room, as our mother called it, though she never had guests, was the room Donny and Tim had shared. There was still a wall of trophies they’d won in high school, in case the nonexistent guests wanted to admire them, and I was pretty sure a suitcase of Donny’s clothes was still in the closet. I remembered Mom folding his oldshirts and crying after he died. I really didn’t want to see any of that stuff again.
    â€œThen there’s the attic.” Pam shook her head.
    â€œCan’t we just hire someone to haul everything away?”
    â€œWhat if there’s something important mixed up with the junk? Something we want?”
    â€œWhat could we want? I already have plenty of old Tupperware.”
    â€œI don’t know, Julie.” She gave me a significant look, then glanced over at Ricky and Star, who were canoodling on a bench and not paying any attention to us. “There might be some old letters or something.”
    I mouthed the words “shut up.”
    Pam gestured toward the young lovers and rolled her eyes to indicate that they wouldn’t notice us if we put on sequined suits and sang “Copacabana.” They were gazing at the creek that ran under our house, pointing at rocks and fondling each other. Water ran beneath half the buildings on Main Street. I’d heard it was a nineteenth-century sewage-system issue, and that was all I wanted to know about it.
    â€œShe wants us to sell everything. No charity.”
    I knew who “she” was. “We’re not going to get any money for this garbage.”
    â€œShe says she saw a waffle iron just like Mom’s in an antique shop for $75.”
    â€œOh, sure. Hey, have you gotten a rental car yet?”
    â€œNot yet.” We both looked over at the driveway, where the Grand Dame sat.
    â€œYou better be careful,” I said.
    â€œI’m only driving it at night. Like a vampire. I’ve been sleeping here so I can walk to work.”
    â€œWhoa, Pammy, you’re a vampire?” We finally had Ricky’s attention.
    â€œYeah, that’s right.”
    â€œThere’s this dude in town who’s a vampire, too. You want to meet him?”
    â€œNo, thanks.”
    â€œYour kind of guy,” I