Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: DIARY (05/16/19)
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TITLE: Pink Papered Prayer | Previous Challenge Entry
By Tracy Nunes
05/22/19 -
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After the hydrangeas, it was the herbs and spices, and finally, the vegetables. Her neatly pruned garden was her pride and joy. She relished the bounty that she would share in the Fall. There was nothing like handing over a bag full of tomatoes for a neighbor to admire.
Lydia would finish up just as the mid-day southern heat started to broil and directly after the mailman delivered her mail. That is if…well, you know, those promises. And today, he was a man of his word. A stack of envelopes and advertisements awaited her when she opened the mailbox door.
Sitting down in the shade, she wiped her brow and took a long drink of sweet tea. That always hit the spot. Then, she sorted through the pile. Advertisements for stores she never went to: recycle bin. Bills: to be opened at her desk. She was looking for a letter from her son, Zeb, who was overseas. And today she wasn’t disappointed.
She picked up Zeb’s letter, ready to slice it open with her monogrammed letter opener, but as she did a torn piece of paper fell from beneath it and floated to the ground. Surprised, Lydia picked it up. Pink paper with tiny purple and white flowers and child-like scrawling. It was torn from a book of some kind.
There wasn’t much writing and what was there, was hard to read. She could only make out the words:
i miss…and…it herts.
Shaking her head, annoyed, she crumpled the paper, deciding it was either some trash the mailman had picked up on his route or those awful Trent boys playing a trick. In the trash it went.
The next day, same routine. Only, the mailman was late, and her ire was up. No letter from Zeb. 0nly one advertisement and another piece of torn flowered paper. This one had a crude date at the top, like an entry to a diary. The date was last Thursday. The words…
Whens MoMa and DaDDy comin
...made the hair on the back of her sweaty-neck stand up. She didn’t crumple the paper. She stuck it in her pocket and went inside, but a growing fear tugged at her insides.
The next morning, not feeling the usual peace that her garden gave her, she went about her business but she was distracted, wishing Jim were alive to help her sort this. Going from row to row, she pulled out weeds and thinned seeds.
The heat was coming earlier this year. She stopped for a moment and wiped her brow. As she did, her gaze absently swept over the neighbor’s back yard. A very fast movement of curtains at the back window made her pause. Was someone looking out? That was odd. As far as she knew, the new neighbor worked all day and didn’t have a family. She wasn’t sure though. He kept to himself except for the guys that would have come over at night.
She waited and watched. Then gasped, when a small hand pulled back the curtain. The tiny face of a little girl peeked out for just a moment and then disappeared again.
Frozen. How could she feel frozen in place in this heat? She dug into her garden trousers and reread the paper from yesterday, then ran into the garage trash to dig out the first piece.
The mailman hadn’t come yet but she ran to the mailbox anyway. Inside, was an entire page of the same flowered paper. The only words were…
hELp mE.
Lydia dropped to her knees right in front of her mailbox and lost her breakfast bagel. Shaking, heart beating wildly, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed 911.
“Please come, I think there is a little girl in trouble!”
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