The Pale Blue Door

I walk past the pale blue door every single day. It is locked, I think, but I haven’t ever tried to open it. Somehow, I sense that I’m not meant to go in there. My Grandma won’t even look down the hall at it. It’s right by my room, and she never goes there either. I had to move in with her six months ago when I finally left my husband. Randy had hit me one last time and that was it. I decided I had to leave. I had to get out of there. I waited until he was on his business trip, packed everything and left. I had told him all my family was gone, because they were essentially. All except for my grandma, Sylvia. I hadn’t seen her since I was sixteen, at a funeral. My parents moved across the country and didn’t see their parents but a couple of times a year on holidays. Once I turned thirteen and could stay home with my older brother, I hadn’t gone back east to visit family at all. My other two grandparents died, my parents had no siblings. So, it was the four of us and Sylvia out here in West Virginia all alone in her little yellow cottage. Then when I was sixteen and hanging out with my boyfriend Randy at home, my parents and my brother went out to pick up pizza for all of us. They wrecked and all of them were killed. Randy was the only person in my life; he was a football player and a mechanic. His parents took me in and then we moved out and got married, his family was mine. And that was how he kept me trapped so easily.

I sat down for breakfast as was the routine on Sunday mornings for the past six months. And Grandma, over at the stove making pancakes and eggs. I offered to help for about two months every week until I realized that she really did enjoy cooking. She said it kept her young and I started to believe it because she got around really well for her age and for being alone out here in the hills of West Virginia. I remembered the night I showed up at her door soaking wet with rain. Shivering, crying, barely able to speak a coherent sentence. She couldn’t have known who I was or even recognized me from pictures because it had been years with no contact and I looked like a drowned rat anyway. But somehow, she sensed it, she called my name and opened her arms and pulled me to her warm bosom and let me cover her with snot and tears and rainwater.

“Coffee or tea dear?” she asked waking me from my memories.

I smiled, “coffee, thanks.” She poured it for me, and I reached for the cream and sugar in the little glass bowl and miniature pitcher on the table. Everything in the house is cute and sweet like her. It’s a dream here, like living in little bow peep’s cottage. There are flowers all around the outside and fresh cut inside and floral wallpaper and lacy doilies all around. All the colors are pastel and refreshing, a stark contrast to the city I had ran from. From the dark and soulless apartment, I decorated to be stylish with Randy. He had advanced in his little garage job up to owning the place and he made great money. Another way he’d kept me trapped.

After breakfast is gardening time and I follow Grandma out there in our “messy clothes” as she calls them but really, it’s just jeans, boots and t-shirts. Things I would wear to work if I ever had a job. I hadn’t worked anywhere; Randy wouldn’t allow it. No college, no skills. I had nothing to offer this woman, and she hadn’t said a word in six months about me finding a job. Once gardening was done and we got cleaned up, it was time to go over groceries. We made the list for the week and then packed into her car; I’d come by bus and hitchhiking. We had lunch in the small town where Grandma lived. A little diner on the way home along the highway. It looked like something from the fifties, one of those metal diners with red and white checkered floors. They had good food though.

“Sylvia?” a voice called as we ate. Just another of Grandma’s church friends, she had all kinds. They talked the whole time we were eating, and I said nothing as usual. I wasn’t used to making conversation. That was another thing Randy had trained me to be quiet, invisible. I noticed my grandma watching me as she chatted with her friend.

“Let’s go home dear,” she said after we were done eating.

The evening routine was the same, like clockwork she would do the same things every Sunday. She and I put away groceries, then she laid out what she would wear to church. After that she would do dishes from breakfast and the laundry. I helped clean up too, and I tried to do my own laundry. I went to church with her. Then it was home for a late snack, usually pie or some sort of coffee cake and coffee. Then it was bedtime. For her it was anyway. I would stay up and read or watch t.v. because she didn’t even have the internet. There was no cell service on this road, and it wouldn’t have mattered because I had left my cell at Randy’s. I didn’t want him using it to track me down. Grandma offered to buy me one, but I refused, I couldn’t be online or anything like that, I was hiding out.

This night I was particularly bored, which hadn’t happened much. Neither back at Randy’s because I was always busy being on alert for a fight or doing something to make sure one didn’t start. And for the past six months, doing nothing here was never boring, it was finally peaceful. Maybe being bored was a good sign. A sign that I was finally relaxed enough to want more excitement, or something. I had never even considered what I might want to do with free time, I didn’t think I would ever get any. I looked out my bedroom window, I could faintly see the woods behind the cottage. I looked around my sparse room. I had brought almost nothing with me. A few clothes and books, I loved reading and that had been about the only thing I was able to do back there. It was my escape, and probably the only thing that had kept me sane. But I had read the books I had three times. They had been new when I brought them, and this little town didn’t have a book store. I got up and paced around the house, I looked in the fridge four times even though I wasn’t hungry at all. There was some coffee left so I got a cup.

I walked back to my room, Grandma’s bedroom was on one side of the living room. The kitchen was on the other. The bedrooms each had their own bathrooms. Other than that it was just the hall and the door. The pale blue door that never opened. I start to wonder if it is locked. Somehow it seems rude to go in there, to even try to open the door. But boredom and curiosity are two strong men abusing all of us aren’t they? So, I hover near the door, looking back at the living room. I know she’s asleep because I heard her snoring slightly. Older people always snore I think, I haven’t met many but all of them I was ever around snored. My grandpa when I was around him would fall asleep on a chair with his head back and snore like a bear. I don’t remember hearing my parents’ snore.

I reach for the knob and hold it gently. I twist and there is a small creaking sound. I want to be as quiet as I can. I don’t want to wake her. I turn it all the way and open the door a crack, I peak inside. It’s dark and I can see nothing so I reach in and feel around on the wall for a switch. I feel it and flip it up. Light floods the tiny room. It’s much smaller than any other room in the house. It could almost pass for a closet by it’s size. The walls are all painted pale pink and the curtains are thick white. There is one window at the far side with a small desk under it. A wooden writing desk with a typewriter right in the middle of it. There are a stack of old papers off to the side of it and one piece in it. Along one wall is a built in bookcase full of books and on the other is the same kind of built in bookcase but this side is full of three ring binders of different colors. Five paces is all it takes to get to the little desk. There is a little chair with pillows on the seat and back. I pull it out and sit down. There is something typed on the paper in the typewriter.

“One day I’ll write again…” and that’s all that’s typed there. Was this Grandpa’s? He did not seem like the writer type. I look over at the stack of paper and flip through, they are all empty. There is a small drawer under the desk and I pull it out. There are extra ink ribbons and other small office supplies scattered in there but not many. I close that and stand up, looking for more clues. I go read the titles of the books and there are so many good books here but they are all dusty. I turn and go to the wall of binders. I pull one out at random and open it to the first page.

“The Garden of Death, By Sylvia Sanders” it says on the first page, printed from the typewriter.

“What?” I say aloud to the empty little room. I turn the page and start reading, it’s enthralling and I sit down to read the story. I keep on and I’ve gotten to the end as I sip my cold coffee and chew my fingernails. The story is captivating and moving, it’s funny and sad and I cry and laugh at those parts and before I know it, I’m moving on to a second one. In the middle of reading the second it becomes dawn and I am not aware of it.

“Gloria,” a voice calls for me. Oh no! She’s awake and looking for me. I grab a paperclip out the drawer to save my place in the manuscript and slam the binder closed. I put it behind my back and sneak out of the room and close the door quietly. I plan to go to my room and hide this binder there to finish reading. But when I go in my room she’s already in there, she never goes in my room.

“Oh hi!” I say in surprise.

“What have you got there?” she motions to the binder in my hands.

“Well… that’s kind of what I was wondering,” I said.

She backs up and sits on the bed, patting the spot beside her. I go over and sit down, handing her the binder. She takes it and smiles at it, running her hand over the smooth cover, “So you found my secret?”

“Grandma, these stories are so good, please don’t be mad at me,” I plead.

“Oh dear, I’m not angry, I just… I didn’t want to remind people of my failure,” she said with a sigh.

“What do you mean? These are amazing,” I said.

“I didn’t want to cause guilt, your mother walked by that room every day for her whole life, this was her bedroom… she didn’t question the closed door, she must’ve thought it was a closet, and it did start that way,” she said.

“I don’t understand, guilt about what?” I asked.

“I was going to be a writer, and your Grandpa supported it… as a hobby but he really wanted children, he even built me those shelves and desk, bought me a typewriter. He supported it, as a hobby,” she said, her lip was trembling.

“So, you thought if mom knew you gave up your dream to have her and be a wife and mom she’d feel guilty?” I asked.

“I did but when I lost her, when she moved out, it was just so long in my past that I couldn’t even go in there, couldn’t look at my failure. I felt guilty for feeling like I gave up my whole life,” she said.

“You shouldn’t, but what do you mean? You didn’t give up your whole life, you’re still alive, it’s not too late,” I exclaim, standing up, I wring my hands as I pace around, “if we could get a laptop and some internet service, I could type all these out and get you published, I know I could.”

She laughed, “Oh be serious, I’m an old woman, it’s too late.”

“How is it too late? At least let me try, please,” I go to my knees in front of her and hold both of her hands, “for me? Let me do this and feel like I have some purpose in life.”

“Well,” she squeezes my hands, “if that’s what you want to do with your time, alright.”

And I did, she bought me a laptop, and I typed them all out. I created an email address in Grandma’s name so Randy wouldn’t find me to correspond to them. I started submitting the stories to every publisher I could find. It didn’t take long before I heard back from scammers but I ignored them. But one day I got an email back from a real publisher. They wanted to know if there were more. I look back at all the binders, there were about fifty of them. It wasn’t long that Grandma was as well known as Agatha Christie, especially in our small town. We bought a bookstore to sell her books and many others. I worked as her agent and ran the bookstore. We stayed in the little cottage and worked from there, we were both too happy there to leave. I even began writing in my spare time, Grandma says I’m pretty good. Coming from her, it means a lot. I’m thinking about writing a story about how I escaped my abuser, and how in her own way Grandma was a victim of the same mentality, even if no one was hitting her. Now I write behind the pale blue door, but most of the time, I keep it open.