Page 3 of Ash

“Esquire.” She heard her voice speaking softly. Softer than she was used to hearing herself speak. “I think it means that he’s a lawyer.”

“Lawyer?” The mailman snorted a laugh. “Then why didn’t he just say that. Put his law firm or something in the return address. ESQ.Essssquire. It makes him sound pretentious.”

Blinking at the return address, she felt a bout of anxiety welling up inside of her.

A letter from an attorney.

One that needed to be signed for.

What kind of trouble was she in?

Drawing herself together before she could fall into a pile of frightened pieces, Suzannah flattened the envelope against her chest and turned around to head back inside her apartment.

“Hey!”

She barely registered the frustration in the mailman’s voice until she saw him take a step closer.

Suzannah reached for the door to close it, managing to get her hand on the edge just as the mailman pushed his palm against the flat the surface of the door and keep it open.

“Aren’t you going to open it?”

She blinked at him, struggling to understand his interest.

“Come on,” he pushed with his voice and his hand, widening the opening of her entryway, “aren’t you going to tell me what it says?”

Suzannah frowned at him, narrowing her eyes at the same time that he narrowed his, the dark centers of his eyes narrowing in an odd way.

“Now you’ve got me all kinds of curious,” he insisted. “Go on.” He smiled and she leaned back and away from him. “Tell me,missss.”

"I'm sure it's personal."

She tried to close the door but he held it open, but before she found herself in a panicky moment, she decided to deal with one thing first.

The door.

Dropping the envelope in desperation, she found her moment when the postman's eyes followed the envelope, and his hand slipped on the door.

It gave her the perfect opportunity to put her whole strength behind her hands and leaned her shoulder into the back of the door and pushed.

When the door sank into the door frame, she heard the first click when the metal bar snapped into place. With her heart pounding in her chest, she clicked the lock, setting it and then reached up for the sliding lock just above her eye line.

It wasn't fail proof, but hopefully it would be enough to convince the all-too-curious mailman that she wasn't interested in letting him into her business.

Suzannah leaned her back against the door and drew in several shoulder-raising breaths before she felt like she could breathe without shaking.

"Crazy." She mumbled to herself. "That was crazy, right?"

There was only silence that answered her.

"And that might be the craziest thing, right? Asking myself a question. When there's no one here but me."

Her gaze slid over to the envelope where it landed on the floor.

Licking at her lip, she hesitated to pick it up.

There could be something good in there, but there could be something... not so good in it, too.

Moving across the floor she leaned down and picked it up, turning it over and over in her hands as she thought about what might be inside it.

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