Keepsakes

The rhinoceros figurine had stood on Mabel’s foyer table for fifty years, staring at any unsuspecting visitor who dared enter the cottage on the craggy shores of Maine’s Peak Island. Mabel had inherited it from Grammy when she died back when – in ’19? And then there were the Royal Doultons sitting in the glass case. Mabel had bought those, one by one, from the savings she’d put together from teaching normal school to all those teenaged girls. Mabel wondered where they’d gone – probably off to marriage, then motherhood, most of them grandmothers now. The balloon lady was her favorite.

She’d tell Norman and Seth to pack them in paper and then bubble wrap. She wouldn’t risk any breakage, that was for sure. Mabel sighed when she looked out the window. The surf was rather wild today. It always was in August, but especially this year because of Hurricane Camille. Wild sea, it was. Mabel sighed again. She’d miss the salty brine from the ocean, the mist that clouded her windows. She’d miss her Victorian cottage and rocking on the front porch swing.

Mabel grabbed her cane from the door handle and headed back to the kitchen. Thank goodness, she’d moved downstairs last winter after the fall. She’d only broken her ankle and said, I’ll be fine, just leave me be, but Seth had wagged an index finger at her and said no, you need to move your bedroom downstairs. Her favorite nephew, now he was like her father. At least as strict as he’d been. Mabel hadn’t been upstairs since Norman and Seth had brought the bed down.

But she wanted to go upstairs, one last time, and look at the room she’d shared all those years with Hester. Hadn’t been the same since ’62 when Hester had gone. Seven years it was, alone in this house without Hester. And now she’d be going, too, this time to the rest home Norman and Seth had found for her. Mabel sighed again. Hester was the lucky one.