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The Unforgotten (excerpt)

The Unforgotten

copyright@2020 w. maguire


“It aint right” the old woman said. “Young girl like that..her wedding night. Like to break my heart.”

Sara nodded and sat down beside her. The beds had all been stripped and the laundry started and the old woman had stepped into an alley behind the laundry. She had smoked two packs of no filter Camels since she was 13 and her voice, rough as a gravel road, sometimes sounded like a cough when she spoke. 

“All these rooms empty and them on a honeymoon. Just feels …dirty to me.”

The old woman had spent her life cleaning other peoples sheets, bleaching them stark white and making beds, like laying in her sheets was the way to make up for all the dirt the city people did to each other.

Sara watched as she took a drag.

“Have you ever been in love?’ she asked.

The old woman looked away. She began to speak but her voice caught. She wheezed and broke into a cough. “I don’t know. Maybe once.”

“What does it feel like?” Sara asked.

The old woman exhaled and dropped the remnant of a butt and crushed it with her heel. She looked up through the smoke like she was trying to see clearly. Then searching herself halted looking for the right words.

“Well honey, it feels like a train."

"You start to feel something in you flutter, like a rail shaking. Then as it gets closer it all starts to rumble down inside. Like something powerful is coming on you and your heart’s in the way.

"It feels like something you’ve been waiting on your whole life but don’t knowed it.”

“But when it’s finally come for you…youre sure it’s going haul you away toward something…something…” she looked up, her eyes glistening and reached out her hand.

“Something better. Something like living was always supposed to be…before it got caught up and lost in so much dirt.”

Sara looked up and realized the old woman was crying, crying without a sound. And she thought of the sermon sign in front of the church. God Loves the Lonely.

She reached over the way that only women know to do and touched her sleeve and the old woman reached a hand back and touched her.

“Yes…there’s some kind of powerful to it. But sometimes it passes you right by. And sometimes if you try to stop it, make it wait for you it’ll roll right on over you. Love can do that too. Flatten you like a penny. Leave you busted up on its tracks.”

Both women held their breath. And listened hard as the afternoon freight train scraped along the rails in the distance. 

“I’m done with all that now” the old woman said. “Them tracks don’t run through me no more."

"But you’re still young honey. I know you can’t see it but there’s a train out there coming for you too. I believe that. I seen too much not to. God loves the lonely.”

Sara raised her hand to her face and tried to cover the wine red stain.

“That old mark don’t make no never mind. There’s a man with the right kind of heart out there that will look at you someday and be blind to that old stain."

Then putting her arms around Sara the old woman whispered  “Hell, we’re all stained. You’re just honest is all. You wear it on your face. The rest of us carry it down deep.”

Then looking into her eyes the old woman squinted, “But I can see it. Who you are. Underneath."

"There’s gonna be a man that’s blind to the rest that will see it too. And your heart will save his.That’s what a woman’s heart is for…saving them. Salvaging men folk from this junk yard living.

They both were quiet for a long moment.

The old woman finally said  “All this talking on love makes me angry. All these fancy rooms and that girl the other night crying and shaking. I could feel the train in her. And that boy, her husband. Made me ashamed, ashamed about doing nothing, ashamed about what living sometimes is…ashamed to be in the room whens they should be there alone.”

Sara looked at her and saw the good heart of the old washer woman, that tried to make the world a little cleaner for all its stains. A woman that felt love once and understood that anyone that has ever felt it owes something.

Something that can’t be repaid, but a soul might gotta try, she thought, try in whatever way it can.

“Tell her to come on to the back. Go on. Go on and find her and the boy. Tell her to come see me by the laundry. Miss Bitterly’s is good enough for the likes of us. But that girl’s gonna have her wedding night. The sheets will be white and her husband’s arms will be round her neck”

Then eyes glistening she cried out - “And by God, she gonna catch that train.”

Sara felt her pulse quicken, got up to go, then stopped. She turned and threw her arms around the old woman. 

“God loves the lonely,” she whispered then hurried away.


Excerpt: The Unforgotten

WLM

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