The Affair Tanni Haas

Who was it supposed to be mailed to? There was a novel? Why had she never sent the letter? Maybe she should ask her mom if she’d found any more writings while cleaning? But she felt a buzzing in her head that told her she should keep these to herself, like the malt trips. She also felt some hurt that her grandma, who knew Skye wanted to be a writer, had never shared a full novel. She could have asked questions and learned her tips and tricks. Now it was too late. She stuck the writings in between pages of a copy of A Tale of Two Citiesand took it with her out of the study.

“I think I’ll read this one,” she told her mom.

The chair of the table where I live my life is a place of joy and sometimes strife.

The part of the city she found herself in was surprisingly quiet and calm; she couldn’t hear sirens or car horns honking like in the movies. She followed the GPS’s instructions to a narrow brownstone. Should she really do this, she wondered? What did she hope to find? She took a deep breath and knocked. She wasn’t sure who she expected to open the door, but was still surprised when she saw a tall blonde girl who didn’t look much older than her.

“Hello?” the woman asked, with only her head peeking out of the door.

“Hi, this is really weird, but I think my grandma either lived here once or knew someone who lived here, and I just wanted to…” she dug her shaking hands into her pockets and tried to collect her thoughts.

What was she doing here? Did she think the person who her grandma wrote the letter to would still be here? She should have spent more of the drive planning what she was going to say.

“I’m sorry. It’s dumb I came. I just found a few writings and letters and one had this address and I…” She started rambling and walking away.

The girl’s eyes widened, and she interrupted Skye’s ramblings. “Oh...”

She opened the door fully as an invitation to come in. Skye hesitated but went inside, where she was greeted by dark wood floors and yellowing plaster walls.

“Wait here. I’ll be right back!”

Everything else looked straight out of a Pinterest board. Plants littered all flat surfaces. The cabinets of the open concept kitchen were bright white and had marble countertops. A pink couch and green chair sat in front of a fireplace that looked new to the house. The girl pointed at the chair.

The blonde girl came back into the beautiful but haunted feeling room, carrying a stack of papers.

“So when I got here, there was a filing cabinet that the landlord said the previous owners just left because they didn’t want to move it.”

She talked quickly and moved her head a lot. “All of the other cabinets were empty, but the top one had a lock on it. I didn’t find a key anywhere, so I just watched a YouTube video to learn how to open it and when I did this is what I found. I had almost forgotten about them because that was like a year ago. It’s like a full book. Is it by your grandma?”

She handed over the papers. The title page was typed and read, “My Time at Timberwood.” The following pages were also typed instead of the scribbled handwriting, but by reading the first few lines, she knew this was her grandma’s work.

“This … I … thank you!”

“There was also this,” she said as she handed over a magazine clipping. A woman stood in shorts but with skis slung over her shoulder smiling in front of an oldtimey ski lodge. “Visit Timberwood Lodge,” the bold letters commanded. Skye squinted at the woman’s face… even with the poor camera quality, she knew it was Grandma Lesley smiling back at her.

“Your grandma must have been really cool. She is a hell of a writer.”

The two talked for a while longer. The girl's name was Megan, and she was a sophomore at the college in New York that Skye was accepted to.

“I’ve never actually visited the campus,” Skye admitted after talking a while.

“Really? It’s only a short walk.” Megan said. “You should go check it out.”

Sometimes life is short, and life is long. We often wish we could do it over.

Skye knew that was a smart idea and would help her, but now she was thinking about the possibility of driving up to Timberwood. The possibility of finding more out about her grandma made her heart backflip. She felt like she’d met a whole side of her this week she didn’t know before.

She thanked Megan and stepped outside. If she walked right, she’d get back to her car, and she could drive to keep following her grandma, avoiding her conflicting feelings about college. Or she could go check out the college, and if she liked it, admit to her parents that that was her path.

The summer before Skye’s senior year, Skye and Lesley both sat at a booth at Steak ‘n Shake. Even though Skye had offered to pick up the shakes and bring them back to her apartment, Lesley had insisted they go out. Her oxygen pack was perched next to her as the two drank their malts discussing Skye’s future.

“Take this from your 85-year-old grandma, you don’t want to have any regrets at the end of your life,” she teasingly wagged her boney finger at Skye. “If you want to write professionally, you need to do that. No matter what your parents want.”