An Old Diary and a New Life

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An Old Diary and a New Life

         Children tended to stay away. I kicked an old soup can and stumbled on. Whatever frightened them, held no candle to what I had just been through. Ghosts and old wives’ tales about witches haunting the place at night couldn’t touch me.

         The windows of the beach shack were boarded up, the nails rusted into reddened dust. I pried a board off and swore as a splinter pierced my finger.

         “David!” As if the gods were listening, another splinter shot its prick underneath my fingernail. This time, I didn’t bother to swear. I simply stopped and pulled. Then I continued, ripping away the coverings of my new house.

         With the windows free to allow light to stream in, I focused on the door. For some reason, its nails were newer, less rusted. I was forced to use the claw side of my hammer which regretfully split the wood. The door would have to be replaced.

         Once the door was free, I discovered that a hinge was rusted. The door didn’t want to open. I jerked and heaved. Voilá. The hinge broke, and the door slid sideways. I dusted off my hands, wiped them on my jeans, and journeyed forward.

         Someone had painted the place for Halloween. Spider souvenirs abounded in more than corners. They must be setting up for quadraphonic sound and saving money on chandeliers.

         I kicked at a pile of rotting clothes. Luckily no one’s dead body was inside. Moving on, I inspected the state of my recent purchase. I could just hear David’s voice sneering. “You went and bought an abandoned shack? You’ll spend more money on repairs than the property is worth.”

         “Shut up, David,” I retaliated, darting a glance through the windows. They were filthy, filmed by webs on the inside and seagull excrement on the outside, yet I could imagine that away; my mind’s eyes saw white-capped waves and the sun’s pathway of reflection streaming across the surface and extending towards the horizon.

         “I’ll do as I want,” I told an invisible David. “It’s none of your business anyway since you dumped me.”

         A nearby spider web quivered with my anger, but David didn’t answer, of course. How could he? He was in the Bahamas with his new flame.

         I kicked a pile of newspapers. A rat scurried out. It took the wind from my anger. I screamed, but only in my mind. Horror is relative.

         The tiny bedroom, unbelievably had a bed. Its aging mattress sagged worse than a forty-year-old horse, but I laughed, happy to see the bed frame and the chest of drawers on the far wall. Someone must have forgotten about it. The piece looked antiquish. Gingerly, I pulled out each drawer, looking inside as if already picturing my clothes all neatly stacked inside. Whoever had left behind the wooden bureau had completely emptied it.

         I turned to look at the other piece of furniture, a small bed stand. Its single drawer called to me to investigate. Eureka! An oilskin bag held a small leather book. Its cover, although brittle and creased from age, had protected the paper inside. I sat down on the bed and flipped through the yellowing pages. Someone’s diary had been left behind, its pages neatly scripted from top to bottom with a fine hand.

         Diaries should be private, but who can resist, and besides the shack and all its contents were legally mine. I flipped to the beginning and started reading.

         Love perished in the crevice of his smile. No, in the fissure of his words, his empty-hearted lies and his hands that strayed to the kitchen maid when we had only weeks before been joined in holy matrimony. Marriage is promises dashed against rocks, like the waves, beating the boulders of our pier. Once I believed.

         I was hooked from her first paragraph. I read on, abandoning my purpose and all awareness of where I was or of the time. Caught in the web of the author's words, I did not see the light fading or feel the chill of the air as the sun descended. Shivering from cold, Goosebumps quivering across my bare arms, it was only my inability to read the words that pulled me away from the mystery of Desiree’s plight.

         I put down the diary, rubbed my hands up and down my arms and stood up. My mind was still tormented by the abuse she’d lived. Her husband’s cheating had only been the start of a married life of unbelievable cruelty. Desiree had poured it all out between the sheets of her diary. Her sorrow was now as real to me as if I’d lived it myself. How had it all ended? How had she died? Why had she left the diary behind?

         I made my way through my new dwelling, stumbling over another pile of clothing, listening to the scratching of rodents, and worrying about the inhabitants of the web I caught with my face as I exited the door. Peeling web fragments from my nose, I stared out at sea. The horizon had already darkened; night had passed its hand across the world, scooping up the light.

         I sat down in the still warm sand and thought about the differences between Desiree’s world and mine. She had been trapped, but I was free. David was scum just like her husband, but at least I wasn’t tied to him, forced to watch him jump from flame to flame, as I, bound by archaic laws, was only capable of fretting and wringing my hands.

         The sky was clear, the stars, a black velvet purse of rhinestones. A meteor shower drew my delight. Fragments of rocks scarred the sky, streaking bursts of light across the velvet. I laughed out loud for such a glorious sight. Life was filled with endless promise.

         I stood up then and began the trek back to my car. Dolphin calls swung me around. I shook my head, not believing such double fortune could exist. A school of them danced a chorus line of gymnastic dives and twists as they sang their songs to entertain me.

         “Ah, David,” I sighed. “It's your loss, not mine, and I smiled, renewed.

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