THE RAINY SEASON, Laura Sanger Kelly, 7/11
7.
“Suggest professional help.”
The second week he was away Barb sent Rachel a post card.
"Rach—
Having a great time. Wish you were here! Seriously, thanks for taking care of the beasties and throwing the lights on and off. Bet you always go in the front door. You’re afraid of the ghosts.
IX-TAB,
Barb”
She left the post card on the dining room table in his house. She felt an abstract strangeness associated with Barb that she did not want to bring into her own house. And knowing that two people had killed themselves in this little blue house frightened her, as if their last moments of desperation—both Mrs. Gotsehr’s and Lisa’s—had saturated the hardwood floors and seeped indelibly into the walls.
That feeling haunted her all night.
The next day she went over to water the plants. The pothos ivy climbed against its trellis, the violets flourished in the kitchen.
She paused, looking at the little white whittled forms on the windowsill.
They were the same as the ones Rachel had seen Barb carefully sculpting in his garden, humming strange tunes to himself.
She picked one up.
It was much lighter than she anticipated, the soft wood like solid velvet against her palm.
She turned it over, admiring the smoothness he had achieved in his working of the form.
He had signed the work, his name and the date of its completion written in indelible ink on the bottom.
It read: “Lisa,” and was dated a little over two years ago.
Rachel put it back. She picked up the next figure, more crumpled in form than the lithe figurine that sat next to it.
“Mrs. Gotsehr,” it read, along with two dates. One was within the last four years; the other was over fifty years ago.
Rachel was almost trembling as she picked up the third figurine: its title was most familiar to Rachel. “Karen,” it read. It had been carved just prior to Karen’s death.
Meticulously, she set them back upon the window sill, as if it had been a grave sin to examine them.
She wondered what denials, angers, and grief hid inside the shadow of Barb’s wide smile.
Why would he carve such evil little things?
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