Celebration of the Arts Short Story Contest — Student Runner-Up

Good Old Margaret and I — Vanessa Di Cecco

Margaret grabbed a clean plate from her drying rack and placed it in the overhead cupboard. Ever since her husband left and her son George had moved out to launch his software engineering career in Toronto, she didn’t have as many dishes to wash anymore. She sighed and rested her hip on the hard kitchen counter as she glanced at the pictures that were pinned to the cupboard’s door. There was a glossy photo of her son’s graduation — he raised his arms victoriously while her and her ex-husband stood uncomfortably beside each other. There were several other pictures of her friends and family: her and her sisters at the family cottage, her and her work friends at her retirement party, and her longest friend Shelley and her at university.

“Haven’t heard from any of them in a while,” she muttered. “Guess they forgot about me.” A deep soreness grew in her lower spine and her shoulders felt burdensomely heavy.

She picked up the picture of Shelley and herself. The Margaret in the photo was young and memorable, not the current Margaret, who felt aged and forgotten. In the photo, the two friends were sitting by the Senator William McMaster statue that sat in their university’s campus. The girls were grinning giddily because they had just graduated university, and their future was as bright as the summer sun that lit their faces. They had met each other at that very spot for a textbook exchange in their first year, and friendship eventually grew. Every memory Margaret had of university included Shelley in some way.

She shifted her attention to the calendar beside the cupboard. September 7th was circled aggressively with red marker, and “pact with Shelley” had been written on it.

“Oh shoot, September 7th — that’s today,” Margaret cursed and pinned the photo back onto the door. “I’m going to be late!”

After graduation, the two had learned that they were accepted to their dream jobs — Shelley was hired as a financial advisor in Guelph, and Margaret landed a journalist position in London. Realizing that seeing each other would be difficult throughout the years, they had made a pact to meet every year. They would meet on every September 7th at the McMaster statue, on the day and at the place where they had first met.

Margaret hurriedly threw on her coat and swiped her silver keys off the kitchen counter. As she gripped the door knob that led to her garage, she paused. Should I even go this year? she thought.

For the first ten years, they were consistent with keeping up the pact. Then one year Shelley had to cancel because she temporarily moved to Arizona for work. Another year Margaret had to cancel because she was still recovering from George’s C-section. Sometimes Shelley would simply forget, and call to apologize later. Margaret would laugh and say that she forgot too, but she hadn’t. Overall, they maintained the pact fairly well. However, for the past four years, Shelley hadn’t showed up and never explained why. Was Shelley getting forgetful as she got older? Or was it Margaret who was becoming forgettable? The soreness in her back flared up.

Margaret began to unzip her coat, but stopped midway. She eyed her birthday cards from February that she had piled up and shoved in her bookcase. Somewhere in that pile was a card from Shelley, with a sweet note saying that she looked forward to seeing her in September. Margaret shook her head doubtfully but her creaky legs were already propelling her out the door.

Her outdated car roared and rumbled as she sped toward McMaster University. She felt a strange sensation in her stomach, as if she had swallowed a peach pit. The soreness in her back and the strain in her shoulders sharpened. What if Shelley forgot again this year? What if she forgot again next year, and the year after that? Her mind became dark and foggy with all of the possibilities. What if everyone had forgotten about her: Shelley, her son, her sisters, and her ex-coworkers?

Every time they met, Shelley would enthusiastically show Margaret photos from the past year. She liked to capture her happiest memories with a camera, and would share her new photos with such enthusiasm: new friends, new additions to the family, new travels, and new experiences. Each year the wallet that stored all of the photos got thicker and thicker, and its leather began to crack and stretch to contain all of her memories. Although Margaret was always glad to see these moments and milestones, she couldn’t help feeling a jealous sensation crawl over her skin like a swarm of spiders. Did Shelley show other people pictures of Margaret? Did she talk about her the way she talked about her book club friends or her neighbours?

A call on her Nokia cellphone pulled Margaret out of her gloomy thoughts. She perked up, thinking that it would be her son calling to check in on her. She picked up the call and almost felt excited.

“Gilmore’s dental office, Sara speaking!” a bright receptionist chirped. “We wanted to remind you, Mrs. Wilson, that you have an appointment this Saturday for a routine check-up.”

Margaret’s eyebrows lowered and she pursed her dry lips together. “It’s Ms. Wilson now. Thanks, Sara, I’ll be there.” She blew out a frustrated breath and hung up.

A moment passed and she laughed to herself, “At least my dentist hasn’t forgotten about me.”

After driving for another hour and parking her car, Margaret walked through the bustling McMaster campus, toward her and Shelley’s special spot. It never failed to amaze her how different the students looked throughout the years. They walked around with futuristic-looking smart phones glued to their hands, meanwhile she still toted her archaic Nokia. What never seemed to change, though, was the students’ constant hustle. Crowds of young adults scrambled across campus like ants in an ant farm. Some students migrated in packs of friends, while others flew solo. Regardless, they were all moving forward toward some destination.

Margaret walked uncertainly through the crowd and to the McMaster statue. She sat on a cold and stiff bench beside it, but a warm feeling of anxiousness made the discomfort easy to ignore. Usually they met at their spot at noon, so this made her 15 minutes early. She waited 15 minutes. Then another 15 minutes. Then half an hour. Then an hour. Every minute, an orange leaf would fall from the branch of a nearby tree. Before Margaret knew it, a whole pile had accumulated. The warm feeling in her arms and legs was quickly fading, and the hard iron bench beneath her made her back pains return. She rubbed her tired shoulders, and her face began to flush with embarrassment and a tinge of resentment.

As she was about to stand and storm back to her car, a young woman approached her.

“Are you Margaret?” she asked with a friendly smile. She had a familiar face — warm brown eyes, freckles that danced over her nose, and a dimpled chin.

“Yes…” she replied confusedly.

“My name is Miranda,” the woman continued and sat next to her on the bench. “I’m Shelley’s daughter.”

Miranda, of course! Margaret thought. She had seen those sparkling brown eyes when she was a toddler stuffing her face with Cheerios, when she was a thoughtful child at her school’s spelling bee, and when she was a radiant bride on her wedding day. She had never actually met Miranda in person or witnessed those memories firsthand, but seeing all of Shelley’s photos made her feel like she had.

“It’s wonderful to have finally met you,” Margaret gushed and embraced her. “Is Shelley with you? She hasn’t come for the past four years, so I wasn’t so sure she’d show up.”

Miranda nodded thoughtfully. “Sorry about that. She probably hasn’t come for so long because of my dad. He was diagnosed with skin cancer four years ago, and it really consumed her life. He’s in remission now, though.”

Margaret’s throat dried up and her esophagus rubbed together like sandpaper when she took a surprised breath. A guilty feeling pricked at her palms.

“I’m glad to hear he’s doing better… I didn’t even know he had cancer. Is Shelley at home with him then?”

A grim look crossed Miranda’s face — the freckles on her nose stood still — and she looked down. “I came here to bring you some unfortunate news. My mom told me that I would be able to find you at this spot, on this day.”

“What’s the news?” Margaret asked. The trees’ leaves stirred in the sudden gust of wind and more drifted slowly to the ground.

Miranda put a consoling hand on her shoulder. “Shelley died a few months ago. It was a heart attack.”

Margaret sat back quietly. A loud buzzing noise rang in her ears. The trees rustled relentlessly. Students’ voices echoed in the background. Miranda’s hand felt like a weight on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Margaret said finally, with her grey eyes full of empathy and remorse.

Miranda nodded softly and sat in silence with her for a minute. She then pulled a worn-out wallet from her purse, which was bursting at the seams with photographs.

“In her will, she asked me to give this to you today,” she said and handed Margaret Shelley’s wallet of photographs.

“Did she say why?” she asked and held the wallet in her cracked hands. The wallet felt oddly warm, as though Shelley had just handed it to her from the breast pocket of her coat.

“There was no explanation,” Miranda answered and shrugged. “But I do know that she cherished her reunions with you. She really felt guilty if she missed it. So maybe she wanted to give you one last update on her life.”

After speaking for a few minutes about Shelley and giving condolences, Miranda left to pick up her son from daycare. Margaret watched as she strode through the busy crowd of students.

Out of curiosity, Margaret sifted through some of the photographs. Some were new — her newest grandchild and her 35th wedding anniversary. One photograph in particular made her pause. She slowly pulled out a worn-down and scuffed photo that

Shelley hadn’t shown her before. It was a picture of the two of them at the McMaster statue after graduation — it was taken the same day as the photo that Margaret had tacked onto her cupboard. Except in this photo, the girls were positioned so that it looked like the young Shelley was polishing the statue’s shoes, while the young Margaret was kiddingly polishing the statue’s semi-bald head. She chuckled at the juvenile joke, and at all of the trouble that they had gotten themselves into back then. When she turned the photo around, she noticed that Shelley had written in blue ink, “Good Old Margaret and I — 2015.”

A sad smile crept over her face. Her worries of being forgotten seemed to evaporate off her skin, into the autumn air, and were blown away by the wind. Miraculously, her sore back didn’t feel pain her anymore and her shoulders felt lighter.

A girl speaking on her iPhone stopped a few feet away from the statue. Margaret looked up from the photos and listened.

“I’m so sorry I have to cancel our lunch date today,” the girl said regretfully as she fidgeted with the hem of her sweater. “My professor’s office hours end soon and I really need to do well on our first test. Can we reschedule for tomorrow?”

The girl paused as she listened to her friend’s response. A concerned and conflicted expression crossed her face.

“I didn’t mean to forget about you. This just came up! I’ll make it up to you…” the girl was about to continue but she was abruptly hung up on. She sank onto the bench beside Margaret and sighed.

Margaret looked down at the photo again. She thought about the people in the photos on her cupboard: George was focused on his blossoming career; her sisters were busy taking care of their own families; her old coworkers were adjusting to working without her; and Shelley was prioritizing her husband’s health for the past four years.

“Don’t worry about it,” Margaret said to the girl after a quiet moment. “Life gets in the way. Sometimes we have to prioritize other things or other people. But that doesn’t mean you’re forgetting anyone or that you’re being forgotten. One day your friend will realize that.”

The girl looked at her confusedly, not realizing that this stranger had overheard her conversation. She gazed thoughtfully as Margaret walked through the bustling crowd of students, with her head held high and the wallet of photos tucked firmly under her arm.