Page 76 of Mourner for Hire
An old container of Noxema is resting on the shelf, along with some crusted Colgate, a dried-out toothbrush, Pocahontas Band-Aids, and a bottle of perfume.
I chuck all the items in the trash, smiling at the nostalgia of the nineties. But before I toss the perfume, I spray it in the air to give the scent of the nineties one final whiff.
But as soon as I smell it, my stomach flips and twists and turns, levitating to my chest.
A scent I can’t place but seem to instinctively know floods my senses and warms my heart. I place the perfume back on the shelf in the medicine cabinet and close it with a sore heart.
This place. This odd cottage. This strange town. It’s painful to admit, but it’s healing too. It’s as if little glimpses of recognition are reminding that my life existed before my mind let go of all the memories. While I’ve made peace with never fully remembering my life before my mom died, this is at least giving me hope that there was love there.
I fall back on the sofa with a notebook and start drawing up plans for the loft bookshelves with an ice-cold Diet Coke in hand and leftovers in a Styrofoam container on my belly. Between the leftover Chinese and the cramp in my hand, I’ve forgotten all about ghosts and Dominic. Then my eye catches the closet in the hallway, and I immediately wonder what treasure trove exists inside the door.
I leave my notebook on the coffee table and rotate my wrist as I walk over to the closet and swing the door open with a squeak. Annabelle kept all her photos she printed off at the one-hour photo department at the local pharmacy in shoe boxes. It’s stacked with shoeboxes, some containing old birthday cards and random keepsakes, but mostly stuffed with photographs. I retreat back to the couch with one and start sorting through the pictures.
Well after the sun goes down and somewhere around the seventeenth box, it’s clear Annabelle wears a size eight and has a wide array of taste in fashion. And also in hairstyles.
Not every photo has a date on it so I start realizing I can divide the pictures based on hairstyle.
The over-hairsprayed bangs and perm belong to ’92-’94.TheRachelappeared in ’95 and lasted until ’99 when the thick highlights and extreme side-part took over.
This woman stayed up with the trends. I’ll give her that.
I laugh to myself as I see a picture of her with black eyeliner framing her bright blue eyes.
“I tried, okay?”
“Jesus!” I jump, clutching the picture to my chest.
“Listen. I know I’m old for Avril Lavigne and Third Eye Blind, but man, they had some bops.”
“Why are you in here?”
“Oh, shit. Sorry,” she says, marching to the front door and ringing the doorbell.
I stand and make a dramatic gesture. “Do come in!”
She raises her shoulders and smiles. “Thank you!” She practically dances through the room. “Anyway, please don’t judge me for my hairstyles.”
“I’m not,” I answer truthfully. She raises her eyebrows questioningly. “Really. I admire you. You were trendy.”
She smiles and sits on the armchair next to me. “I let myself morph with the times, and I have zero regrets.”
I laugh a little, but my smile must have dropped because she follows her statement with…
“Why do you look sad?”
“Because you said you knew my mom, and I can’t find any pictures of her.”
“Do you want to find pictures of her?” Annabelle’s face contorts in confusion.
I realize this may seem like it’s coming out of the blue. When I met her, I wanted nothing to do with uncovering my past. But now, with every tiny glimpse, my hope is slowly overriding my stubbornness.
“I’m just curious,” I admit.
She looks at the closet. There are at least one hundred more picture boxes in there for me to sort through.
“She’s somewhere…” The hitch in her voice makes it sound like a complete sentence, but I know it’s not. “…in there.”
“What does that mean, Annabelle?”
