The Postcard by Tony Abbott

magazines like this one. But it was when they were really young. Eighteen or twenty or something. He was only around for a little while, then he was gone. Vanished. That was, I don’t know, fifteen years before I was born. Longer.”
    Gone? Vanished? Maybe there actually
was
a mystery.
    “Her father didn’t like him for some reason. But then, the old man didn’t like anyone.” He paused to shake his head. “She talked about him a little, Beale, I remember that. But he went away and who knows?”
    I wanted to call Hector right away. Grandma with a boyfriend! From a picture we found earlier in the buffet, I could tell that she was pretty as a teenager. But not long after that she had some kind of accident and didn’t get better. She was in a wheelchair most of her life. Dad always said he didn’t know what actually had happened to her, only that she nearly drowned. It got very hazy when he talked about it, so I didn’t understand much. Maybe Mom was right. It was all pretty strange. But at least he was talking about it.
    The Florida room was warming up as the afternoon went on.
    Dad finished his second beer and gazed at the floor, not sorting papers, only shaking his head slowly. “It was okay for a while when I was young,” he said. “I mean, almost normal. I liked that. I loved growing up here. Who wouldn’t? But she was never well, always sick. Hospitals, clinics. I saw her less and less and nurses more. Nannies took care of me for a while. There was money. Then, I don’t know, things changed. She was really sick then, and I barely saw her after that. I wanted to stay, but she was vehement that I should go away.”
    He went quiet and seemed to fall into himself like at home. I totally knew what Mom meant. It was hard to know what to do. Was he going to start crying again?
    “Maybe because she was too busy?” I said.
    “What?”
    “With doctors and all? Maybe that’s why she wanted you to go to Boston? After high school. Because her whole time was spent with being sick and stuff. Maybe?”
    He snorted. “Who knows? I hated it. I didn’t want to go. I was mad. I wanted to stay in St. Petersburg. I loved it here.” He paused. “But after school everyone split up, anyway. My friends went different places. I went to Boston, worked for a while, then went to school. I met your mother there.” He paused again. “That was good. Your sister and brother came along, then she got sick. Mom got sick. I mean, my mother, not Mommy, got sick in her mind and nothing was the same. It all . . . it all . . . jeez, Jason, whatever!” He stood up. “Can’t you see I don’t want to talk about it? Her adventurous spirit has flown —
pfff.
” He made a little sound. “She’s dead now, and buried. For Pete’s sake. It’s over.”
    He got up and stomped into the kitchen. He grabbed the refrigerator door, yanked it open, and pulled out another beer.
    “Just get to work, huh? Leave that box alone; I’ll do it. Trash the junk from the buffet, then empty the kitchen cabinets into the boxes I bought. Let’s get this moving!”
    “Sure, Dad. I’ll do it.”
    I went back to the buffet while he slumped off to the bedroom. I heard drawers slam and clothes hangers jangle, cursing, then it went quiet. A few minutes later, I heard snoring. Well, good. He had, what, three beers in the middle of the day? The sun was pouring into the backyard now; it was deep afternoon. I dragged an empty carton over. I tried for a few minutes to calm down, not sure what to do, until I found myself back at the desk and that magazine in my hands again. It smelled of closets and dust and old things, but also strangely sweet, like chocolate. I sat down and went through it page by page until I found Emerson Beale’s story. The story by Grandma’s old boyfriend. Taking a long breath to calm myself, I began to read.
    CHAPTER FOURTEEN
    TWIN PALMS
    A NOVEL OF THRILLING TERROR
    By Emerson Beale
    —I—
    THE BLUE SEDAN
    There are a hundred Different