Irene had been one of the original founders of the library, back in the days when few people in the town read or wanted to read, and she had, by all accounts, been one of the major civilizing forces in the community. Even after retiring, Irene had continued her association with the library, spearheading fund-raising efforts and volunteering for book drives, patron-membership drives, and book and magazine sales. It was Irene herself, in fact, who* initially called Tritia , soliciting her help.
The two of them had hit it off instantly. They were of different generations, of course, but Irene was up on current politics and cultural events, and with her outgoing personality and boundless enthusiasm for everything, she seemed to have more in common with Tritia than with the fossilized volunteers her own age.
Tritia got out of the car and walked up the faded wood steps to the screened porch. She knocked on the door and Irene's voice sounded from the kitchen, "Come on in. Door's unlocked."
Tritia pushed open the door and walked inside. Irene's house was decorated with antiques, though they had not been antiques when originally purchased. The foyer was dominated by a large hall tree, and the living room contained not only antique bookcases and china cabinets but a pristineVictrola and a beautiful baby-grand piano. Tiny porcelain figures, collected for the past half-century, lined shelves on the wall. The house was warm and comfortable, filled with healthy plants, and Tritia always felt good here, happy, as though she were in some sort of sanctuary protected from the outside world.
Irene was in the kitchen, plucking leaves from a tied bunch of dried plants. She often made her own tea from a mixture of mints and flowers she grew in her garden, a wonderful brew that Doug and Billy both said tasted, like dirt.
The old woman turned around as Tritia entered the room, her fingers continuing to skillfully defoliate the dried herbs as if they worked on their own, disassociated from the rest of her body. "How've you been, sweetie?" she asked.
"Haven't seen you in, what, two or three weeks?"
Tritia smiled. Irene was the only person she'd ever met, young or old, who could say words like "sweetie" or "honey" without making them sound either cloying or condescending. "I'm okay," she said.
"You don't sound okay. You sound kind of tired. In fact, you look a little peaked as well."
"Stress," Tritia said.
The old woman stopped tearing leaves and used a corner of the apron she was wearing to wipe sweat off her forehead. "Doug?"
"No, nothing like that. It's just . . ." Her voice trailed off. "I don't know what it is."
"I got your card this morning."
"Card?" Tritia felt a warning light go off in her brain. She had sent Irene no card.
"Yes. It made me laugh, but I don't know why you sent it. I'm not sick."
Tritia felt the stability she'd begun to recapture the last few days recede, a familiar fear welling within her. She looked around the kitchen and suddenly the room itself seemed strange, the light coming in through the window not quite right. "I didn't send it," she said.
The old woman's face clouded over. She was silent for a moment, though her fingers continued to work. "I was afraidofVthat ." There was no surprise in her voice, no emotion at all. It was a statement of fact, delivered straight.
Tritia moved over to the breakfast nook and sat down. "You know, too."
"Know what?"
"About the mailman."
Irene stopped working and sat down across the table from Tritia . "I
haven't seen him. But how could I not know what's been happening to the mail?
I've been getting letters from people I haven't seen for years. Decades, even.
People I thought were dead. I got a letter from Sue at the library that Sue never sent."
Tritia nodded. "It's been happening to everyone."
"Well, no one's talked to me about it. I called Howard up the other day to complain, but he seemed real distracted and didn't seem to pay much attention to me. I went over to the post office that afternoon, but that new man was there, and he told me that Howard had gone home sick." She shook her head. "I've never known Howard Crowell to be sick."
"Neither have I," Tritia said.
"The past few days, I've been getting get-well cards from people." Irene smiled. "At first I thought the doctor was telling everyone else something he wasn't telling me. But then I thought that this wasn't a joke. Friends sent me cards as though they thought I'd suffered a heart attack. I called to let them know I was all right, and they said they hadn't sent me anything."
"I didn't either."
"I know." Irene looked out the window. A hummingbird alighted for a moment on a honeysuckle branch next to the window, then zoomed off above the trees.
"I've decided to just ignore it. Hopefully it will all go away."
Tritia frowned. It wasn't like Irene to simply "hope" that something would go away. She had never been the passive type. "Have you talked to Howard since then?"
Irene shook her head. "Have you?"
She hadn't, but she was not sure why. It was obvious to her now that Howard had not sent that letter to her, but she had still been harboring some residual anger and had not been able to quite shake her duplicitous image of the postmaster. She would force herself to see Howard today, on the way home.
"Let's talk about something else," Irene said, standing up. "We have quite a bit to catch up on."
This wasn't like Irene either. Tritia looked into her friend's face and saw in her expression a woman she didn't know. A frightened woman. The warning light was now flashing, accompanied by a buzzer. "Have you told anyone?"
"Let's talk about something else," Irene said firmly.
Tritia drove around the block once, twice, then finally gathered up enough courage to pull into the post-office parking lot. She sat for a few moments in the car, then forced herself to get out and walk inside.
The parking lot was virtually deserted, only one car and one pickup in the spaces next to her. That was unusual but not completely unheard of for this time of day, but what was weird was the fact that no one was sitting on the benches outside the building. The old men who usually wiled away their days in front of the post office were nowhere to be seen.
She stepped inside. The mailman was alone behind the counter, helping an elderly man with a white mustache. This close, his sharp red hair seemed somehow threatening, particularly when paired with the blandness of his pale features.
Howard was nowhere to be seen. She tried to catch a glimpse of the room behind the partition in back of the counter, to see if the postmaster was working in the back, but she could see nothing from this angle.
She looked around the lobby. She had not been here in several weeks, and the room had changed. In place of the Selective Service poster that had been prominently displayed on one wall -- a poster featuring a benign young man seated on a stool next to his pretty girlfriend -- was a poster filled with the grimacing sweaty head of an ugly marine, flecks of blood on the collar of his uniform, aggressive words printed over his photo, demanding, ordering that all eighteen-year-old males register upon reaching their birthdays. The entire character of the post office seemed different. Even the stamp posters on the walls had changed. Where once had hung beautiful posters for the most recent nature stamps and wildlifephilatelies were now three identical signs for a new stamp celebrating the anniversary of the invention of the hydrogen bomb.
The room seemed very hot, almost oppressively so. The day was not particularly warm or humid, was in fact uncharacteristically cool for this time of year, but the inside of the post office was roasting.
The man at the counter finished his business, turning to go, and Tritia realized with something like panic that she was the only other patron in the post office. She, too, turned quickly to leave, but the mailman's smooth professional voice held her. "Mrs.Albin ?"