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Esther
Esther was too upset to sit still. She’d tried to knit and watch television, but she couldn’t stop thinking about her church, and the more she thought about it, the harder it was to sit still. She thought about eating something. She still hadn’t had lunch. But she had no appetite. She decided to go for a walk. This was only a little unusual for her. Though her doctor had told her to walk every day, she managed it once a month. But today was a perfect, beautiful day, and so she decided a walk might calm her mind a bit.
She put on her sneakers and headed outside. She lived in an apartment building specifically for people like her. Mostly widows with a few spinsters mixed in. All on a fixed income. All lonely.
The sunshine felt good on her face and arms, and she breathed in the fresh air. On most July days, she wouldn’t want to be outside walking in the summer heat, but today the temperature was perfect, and a breeze blew in off the sea.
Her building sat on a street corner, and she turned away from Main Street and headed down the smaller side street, Providence Ave. It was a small town, but Main Street was still too loud. It had been even worse back when the paper mill was open. Russell had worked at that paper mill for thirty-seven years. Then they’d shut it down, giving him about as much advanced notice as she’d had from the church. It wasn’t a fond memory. They’d been scared. The economy hadn’t been good, and he hadn’t known how to do anything else. He only knew how to make paper.
But they’d made it work. He’d found a job at a lumberyard. He made a lot less there, but it was all right, as they didn’t have any debt, and they didn’t have expensive hobbies. She’d always loved the way he smelled when he came home from the lumberyard. Like pine.
She realized she was passing by an old church. She stopped and looked up at it. She’d driven and walked by this church countless times, but this was the first time in ages that she’d really looked at it. She tried to remember the last time it had been open. Sometime in the seventies, she thought. She shook her head. What a shame. A crooked for sale sign hung in the yard. That had been there for as long as she could remember. No one wanted to buy an old church. She stepped onto the lawn, which was long overdue for a mow. The place had been beautiful once. It was a wreck now. The stained-glass windows had been removed, and the holes boarded up. Paint flaked off the walls. The basement windows were broken, and someone had spray-painted graffiti on the walls. This looked particularly awful because there was no graffiti in Carver Harbor. Ever.
Was this what was going to happen to her church? Were they going to slap a for sale sign in front of it and then let it go to ruin? She didn’t know if she could take that.
She heard a noise and looked up. A bird flew out from under the rafter. Good, at least someone was still being blessed by the place. She smiled.
A small group of giggling girls interrupted her reverie. She turned to watch them run down the street. They were beautiful. So young, so carefree, so energetic. She didn’t know what they were laughing at, but something had sure struck them funny—or at least three of them were laughing. One of them looked sad and only seemed to be trying to catch up.
Esther smiled at the sad girl, but none of the girls saw her.
Then the loudest one flung a plastic slushy cup over her right shoulder, not even looking to see where it would land. It flew within feet of Esther and landed in the tall grass of the church’s lawn.
Esther sighed. She went and picked the cup and the sticky straw out of the long grass. She gave the old church one last look. “I’m sorry this happened to you,” she said quietly, “and to your people.” Then she headed back to her apartment building so she could throw away the litter.
She’d been wrong. Her walk hadn’t made her feel any better.
