"Heirloom" (standard:Psychological fiction, 3592 words)
Author: Straybullet	Added: May 11 2007	Views/Reads: 3845/2506	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
This is for all the packrats who've missed a few spring cleanings. Maybe you should quit procrastinating and get to cleaning...then again maybe you shouldn't.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

they grow up too fast, but it was so, so true. Sarah hadn't come around 
often enough since Luanne's death last year. Now twenty-five and no 
children of her own, Sarah spent most of her time with her husband Brad 
or at her career as a real estate agent, selling homes that she herself 
wanted but didn't think she'd ever afford. It must be difficult 
peddling your dreams. Peggy's other daughter, Luanne, had lived 
thirty-two hard years, an invalid since birth, unable to speak or even 
to feed herself and then at the end, finally unable to move. Peggy had 
initially felt anger toward God for her malformed child. Eventually her 
anger subsided through the years of them suffering through, together, 
just her daughter and her. Luanne would always smile at her mother 
brighter than at anyone else, as if she understood and appreciated the 
sacrifices her mother had made. That girl could make a penny think it 
was worth a million bucks. 

As one might expect rummaging through memories had taken its toll on
poor Peggy. Fat tears threatened to roll down her face. She sniffed, 
then chuckled reliving a memory about a particular doll of Sarah's she 
held. She ran her finger, wrinkled by the cold soapy water, down 
Barbie's forever smiling hard plastic face and decided that the toy 
could keep her place of residence. By now she had completed several 
boxes, taking each item out, cleaning it, then placing it in its proper 
pile. The "keep" pile now towered over the puny "sell" pile as she had 
expected. Peggy was a packrat no matter how you slice it. She knew 
she'd probably never, ever change but that didn't matter to Peggy. She 
could clean it all again next spring and cherish each dust-streaked 
moment. 

Peggy stood too suddenly, teetering a little before regaining her
footing. That was it for today she resolved. She turned to go 
downstairs when her hip complained with a pop, or was that her knee? 
Getting old, she told herself as if the visit to the attic today hadn't 
been sufficient enough to remind her of that. Tomorrow was another day, 
and she had enough time to lend. 

2 

Sarah hadn't come over that day or the next. Both days Peggy labored
alone in the attic wiping, dusting and polishing between swigs of 
drink. During that time she had unearthed Sarah's first bicycle- a 
Huffy ten-speed, red with gold streamers on the handlebars. Beneath a 
moth eaten tarp she'd uncovered the old gray Casio keyboard that had 
originally been Sarah's twelfth Christmas present but had been 
bequeathed to Luanne, since she seemed to like it more. Peggy recalled 
how Sarah would complain about Luanne's playing the keyboard and 
keeping her awake at night, their rooms being next to each other. 
Luanne's old crib had fetched a few sour memories of Peggy's first 
husband Patrick, whom had left her with a daughter she had no idea how 
to raise. She let the anger rise a little knowing it could never reach 
flood stage again-Patrick had probably died long ago, outlived by the 
very family he had forsaken. That was revenge enough. She'd only 
brushed the well-worn washcloth along the side of the crib twice before 
deciding not to keep it.  Peggy slid it over to the "sell" pile. Maybe 
another family could imprint some good memories onto this. 

Next, Peggy had found some of her own dresses from the couple of years
that her younger sister, Carole, had moved in to help her take care of 
Luanne. In that time Peggy had made an effort to lose weight, only to 
have it come back in spades years later. However, at that time in her 
life she had to admit that she looked good. The red dress she held up 
to look at now, showed just how slim she had been. Peggy would often 
leave Carole with Lou Anne and go out prowling for a good time with 
some of the other nurses she worked with. Long wild nights she'd spent 
hanging out at some of the bars, often being lured into strange 
bedrooms by strange men. The result of which inevitably was Sarah. 

Chronologically, the next boxes contained many of Sarah's infant clothes
now faded with age. Peggy held clothes with little smiling bears and 
once bright flowers on them, finding dark patches of stained fabric 
where a detergent failed to completely remove a strained peas stain. A 
blue bonnet that Sarah had hated wearing and one of her dolls went the 
way of the crib. Others she sat next to the high chair she had found 
and cleaned off yesterday. She was cleaning her life, brushing up on 
her own history and she found she was enjoying herself immensely. 

3 

Today she had gotten herself up earlier by two hours! Peggy had eaten a
skimpy breakfast of cold cereal and raisin toast and returned, brimming 
with a sense of discovery, to the attic chores. She briskly finished 
off a whole section before catching herself wiping off an entanglement 
of clothes hangers. Ultimately she gave up and pitched them-even a 
packrat had to draw the line somewhere. She uncovered an old 
etch-a-sketch that actually still worked. She fooled around with it a 
little before deciding to sell it. Her enthusiasm carried her into noon 
when a certain memory drained it out of her. Elsie Winfield, one of 
Sarah's childhood friends throughout grade school...up until her 
disappearance. Murder was more like it. Peggy held out the picture, red 
plastic frame broken in the upper right hand corner, the two girls 
Sarah and Elsie hugging each other mightily, smiles bursting forth. 
They were both eleven at the time, the age that Elsie disappeared. Dear 
sweet girl, the only one of Sarah's friends who had spent the night; 
the others were afraid of Luanne since she could be noisy sometimes. 
She couldn't blame them. Evelyn, Lisa, Brandy, all of them would freeze 
whenever Luanne had one of her muscle contractions and let out a wail, 
then would try and act as if they hadn't noticed. Peggy would often 
look at Sarah, seeing her face colored by embarrassment. God bless her 
daughter Sarah, not many kids would have been so loving and 
understanding at such a young age. 

That was why Peggy was glad when the Winfield's had moved in and Elsie
and Sarah had become friends. Elsie never showed uneasiness around 
Luanne. That was the thing with her. Elsie had always been kind almost 
to the point of being angelic; she had even fed Luanne on occasion. The 
fact that Luanne had so trusted Elsie made her an unofficial member of 
the family. Peggy remembered the three girls, “all her girls” she'd 
say, would play hide and seek up here in the attic, or sometimes would 
dress each other up in her room smearing too much lipstick or applying 
excess amounts of eye shadow on one another. Peggy used to love 
watching them through the crack in the door, peeking at the three of 
them just being girls. Her girls. 

Peggy recounted the summer of eighty-nine, the year that Elsie Winfield
had come up missing. Her father had been suspected of course. There had 
always been rumors in the neighborhood that he abused her, though Peggy 
had never found any bruises. She had looked for them too, sometimes 
cleaning a smudge on an arm where there was none, and occasionally 
tossing a question about her parents here and there, looking for 
anything suspicious. Peggy felt bad about prying but couldn't stand the 
thought of Elsie being hurt. Despite all of this something did indeed 
happen. 

Elsie had been over to play with Luanne and Sarah that afternoon and
stayed when Sarah went to band practice. She didn't go home that 
evening. At least that's what the Winfield's had claimed. The next day 
her parents reported she was missing. She was never seen again. 
Naturally, Sarah had fallen into a deep depression, and Luanne cried 
horribly, often shrieking in the middle of the night. It had gotten so 
bad that she needed to wear her head guard, which she hadn't worn in 
years. Police questioned the whole neighborhood. It was learned that 
Doug Winfield, Elsie's father, had gotten into a severe argument with 
his wife the night before. 

"It was worse than I've ever heard it, and believe you, me it gets
pretty loud next door sometimes." Mrs. Cox had told Peggy. 

"You know me Peggy, I got nothing to do but sit around and watch other
people, but I didn't want no part of it that night." 

A month had gone by with no trace of Elsie. Peggy had to get her and her
daughters away. The three of them moved in with Carole and her family 
in Virginia for the remainder of the summer. By September Sarah's 
spirits had brightened some, since she had returned to school, and 
Luanne had returned to her docile self. When they returned home, the 
Winfield's, being acquitted of any wrong doings, had moved away, as far 
away from the eyes of the accusing neighborhood as they could get. 
People suspected things; they always did, but with nothing to go on 
Doug Winfield could be charged with nothing. 

A single tear fell from the face of Peggy Householder. Through the musty
attic air it plummeted, exploding onto the picture frame Peggy held in 
her shaking hands. It was the inscription in red permanent marked 
scrawled on the cardboard backing that did it. 

Elsie Michelle Winfield and Sarah Lynn Householder FRIENDS FOREVER!!
Summer ‘89 

Peggy Householder placed the picture back into the box unclean and face
down. It was time to retire for today. Later that night just after 
supper, Sarah called and promised to visit tomorrow and sort her things 
out. Sarah wasn't accustomed to going back on her promises so Peggy 
trusted her daughter to be there. The two talked for a little, planning 
the yard sale. Sarah talked about how well things were going between 
her and Brad. They both said their goodbyes and hung up. That night, 
Peggy had trouble sleeping. Perhaps it was the anticipation of Sarah 
spending time with her or, more probably, it was all the memories that 
had been dredged up after all this time. She lay awake with her mind's 
eye seeing Doug Winfield's face, just as it had been on the eyewitness 
news in 1989, staring impassively back as if his soul were drained out 
of him. 

4 

"You're still hanging on to too much junk." Sarah admonished her mother
lightheartedly. 

Peggy had never referred to any of her old possessions, no matter how
insignificant, as junk. After spending a considerable amount of time 
cleaning them it hurt a little to hear Sarah say so. Nevertheless, 
Sarah's company was a blessing. 

"Don't you want to keep hold of things? What about your roller skates or
your bicycle?" 

"No Mom. We don't have enough room, it'll have to go.” 

“Are you sure? I can hold on to it until..." Peggy offered meekly before
trailing off. Sarah snickered then kissed her on the cheek. 

"Mother it is good to see you." 

That was the way it went that day-no tear jerking scene, no
uncomfortable silence, just the two of them going through things, 
rehashing old memories, and talking more than working. Peggy had hidden 
away anything of Luanne's that might upset the day. Sarah reliving some 
chicanery she had gotten away with and Peggy talking about her life 
before Sarah was born, the PG-13 version of it anyway. After a quick 
lunch the two of them carried the things that neither thought anyone 
would buy down to Brad's truck to be taken to the dump. Peggy sat most 
of that out, exhausted from hiking the stairs. She wandered the hot 
attic while Sarah rearranged the load in the truck and shut the 
tailgate. The sun, unhindered by clouds, bore through the dirty 
windowpane giving the attic an amber glow. Peggy found a box of Elvis 
Presley albums among others and was content on leafing through them. 
Maybe the two of them could get the turntable on that old stereo to 
work. 

Sarah bounded upstairs asking, "What's that mom?" 

Peggy told her the idea. Sarah agreed and began scanning through the
antiques and the things that hadn't been gone through yet. The two of 
them had made it all the way to the last row. 

"You don't want to save any of these old magazines do ya?" 

They eyed each other, smiling, before Peggy replied, "Well I suppose
not.“ 

They enjoyed another laugh. Sarah went to looking for the turntable and
Peggy returned to her records. 

After a few minutes of rummaging Sarah exclaimed, "Oh Wow!" 

Peggy looked up from "Blue Hawaii" to see her daughter beaming a smile
at her. 

"I guess I should have figured you'd still have that old hope chest,"
said Sarah. 

"The old dark cherry wood one your grandmother had?” Peggy replied. “Oh,
Yeah...back there in the corner isn't it?" 

Sarah nodded then added mischievously, "We used to love to get into that
thing as kids. We'd get those old pictures out of grandma and you and 
Carole as kids. We'd sit around and pretend to be you guys." 

Peggy blushed, a little embarrassed about being a character in someone's
imagination. 

"Who was me?" asked Peggy. 

"I was", laughed Sarah. "Hey Mom, I'm done for the night.  I'll dig out
the pictures and the turntable huh?" 

"Sounds good." 

Sarah turned and could be heard shuffling things around in the last row.
"What happened back here, an earthquake?" 

Peggy got up to look. Her daughter was rummaging through a wreckage of
boxes. A slew of half spun bright yellow National Geographic had 
spilled out onto the dust-covered floor. She followed the avalanche of 
articles, one box had, at some point in time, crashed onto the top of 
the chest. Peggy figured it must have damaged the chest a little, 
though hopefully not too bad. The rest of the stack had toppled over 
and blocked the front of the chest nearly obscuring it from view. 

Sarah struggled against the boxes, en mass, stuffing items back in and
straightening the pile. Peggy remarked to herself that she had 
completely forgotten about this remnant that dated back to her 
grandmother, possibly further. The chest was made of sturdy oak and 
stained a deep wooded red, with brass knobs and clamps. Sarah knelt in 
a pool of dust and Peggy could, or thought she could, make out some old 
shoeprints, maybe even Sarah's left years ago. Years apart the two sets 
of shoeprints danced with one another from across generations, the dust 
their landscape. 

"OK Mom, let's get this thing open." 

Peggy had looked away for only a second, scanning the room for a
turntable that wouldn't be found again until after her own death when 
she heard her daughter scream. Peggy's eyes darted first to her 
daughter, whose hands clung to her face and whose legs threatened to 
collapse under her, then to the antique chest. 

5 

June fifth of 1989, Peggy Householder had found her oldest daughter
Luanne crying violently at the base of the stairs leading to the attic. 
She had assumed that Luanne had lost something up there in its musty 
recesses. Despite her daughter's unintelligible protests Peggy closed 
the attic door for the last time that summer and suggested that her 
daughter go lie down in her room and take a nap. Later that evening the 
Winfield's would wonder where their only daughter was and why she 
hadn't come home that evening. They worried that their constant 
bickering at each other had driven their daughter to the point of 
running away. The inquiries and subsequent search for an unlucky eleven 
year old girl would have been put to rest if only Peggy Householder 
would have investigated a loud thump she had heard earlier that 
afternoon while slicing tomatoes in her kitchen. Peggy had been wrong 
to assume that what Luanne had lost fourteen years ago had been only a 
toy. She also mistakenly identified the tracks in the dust that led to 
the trunk but not back, to be those of her daughter. 

Sarah screamed again before rushing past her mother into a corner where
she sat, bringing her knees to her chest and sobbed. The tears that 
came from Peggy were those of a most ghastly sorrow. How could any of 
them have known that an innocent game of hide and seek would have 
caused such tragedy. What could it have been like for poor Luanne to 
know and yet be unable to tell anyone? Was it her that accidentally 
toppled the heavy boxes of magazines over trapping a little girl inside 
a dark red stained wooden hope chest? Horrified beyond all sense, she 
trembled and looked inside. It was there, among the black and white 
family photos, and the post cards, forever wearing the blue T-shirt and 
jean shorts she had worn to the house that day, curled up and eyeless 
lay the ageless husk of a little girl that once was Elsie Winfield! 


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