I was at an advanced stage of pregnancy (seven months) when I had embarked on the bus and an old woman joined me. Nobody wanted to give her any seat, and I got up and offered her my seat. and sat and looked at me–gazed at me–almost frighteningly.
When she rose to take her departure she dropped something in my coat pocket without a word. I entered in and stopped.
They were a house key.
They were dangling on a small faded sunflower keychain that dates back to years back. With this confusion, I thought she was making a mistake. Perhaps, she was intended to hand them to somebody? I raised to call to her, but by this time she was off the bus, in the street and far away before I could find words.
“Ma’am! Wait!” I called out of the window, and she never turned round.
I was unable to follow on the bus. In silence I sat stunned. What was that which had happened?
The thing is the same night I could not get it out of my mind. There was a name engraved feebly on the back of the keychain: Luci. And a half- washed out address written on a peeling label: 9 Mercer Lane.
Just as I told this to my boyfriend, Dorian, he laughed. People just land any thing into bags all the time. There is no need to read into it.”
However, I could not get her eyes out of my head. Not soft and friendly, but sincere. As when she would have me had those keys. As she was aware of me.
In two days, curiosity got the better of me. I went to find out the address.
The dwelling place in 9 Mercer Lane was a slight, shabbed-down cottage. It appeared to have been long forgotten though not forgotten. The mailbox said L. Wynn. Just like the key chain.
I was standing out there in doubt of it, with aching belly since I was pregnant. I was nearly about to turn round. But I could not remember her gaze, it was its mass.
I had a crack with the key. It fit.
All was still in the inner. The dusty yet habitable. A clock with a tick. A sweet smell of lavender. I did not find it spooky. It was suspended, in suspense.
Here was an envelope on the kitchen table, closed. The front had my full name written.
With tremulous hands I opened it.
*Dear Nessa,I don t know you but you know me.
I have known your mother before she died. She had merely an infant in her arms. Life did not favor her and I have the guilt of not ensuring to do more the first time I had the opportunity to do so. I stood and watched out.
You are not the only one. I am not rich, but the house is mortgaged off. I have not got children, not a family, but only memories. You and the baby have a greater need than I have.
Hope some day you will be understand.
With love,Lucinda Wynn*
I overwhelmed sat there long. Mother knew her. The lady who passed on when I was three year old. Her only connection to her family was snippets that I had heard when I was younger and no one had ever told me about a Lucinda.
Now that expression in her eyes was understandable.
She had the fright of a ghost.
I slithered in a couple of weeks later. I did not tell Dorian at once. We had an uneven thing going on-he was not mean, he was simply, gone. He told me he would like to become a father, but never came to appointments, he was busy, he was far.
His reaction upon being informed about the house put me to shiver. And now you just go and live in the house of a dead woman? That’s insane.”
I told him go or no go.
He didn’t.
And honestly? It came as a Godsend.
My house was not quite right but it was mine. I was invited to neighbors. There was a boy of about 14 and an older man called Renzo who assisted me to repair the damaged gate. A good woman across the street delivered baby clothes which her granddaughter had grown out of.
I began to paint again-oh since high school.
I am grounded when Mira, my daughter, was born. Scares, sure, but not lost.
In that little house there was a queer kind of comfort. The shelves were cluttered with hand me down books that Lucinda had read. On hooks were her chipped teacups. Like the spirit hung about–not to haunt but as to guide. We wonder at him above.
A month afterwards I received a letter of a lawyer.
Lucinda had recently revised her will, and had actually bequeathed the house to me, just before her decease. She had not told any one. All was done very quietly.
And there was a photo inside the envelope, the smiling young mother and baby me in her arms. Lucinda was standing by her.
She was speaking the truth.
I always believed that people like me could never be meant to do more than just make ends meet. Yet, there are times when life gives you something that you have not expected not a miracle, but a turning point. Silent rescue.
It was not only keys which that old woman on the bus gave me.
She provided me with a new start.
Each morn at the giggle of Mira in her crib I tell the stillness, out of dry lips, thank you.
Not only to give shelter.
.
However, there is another lesson, which makes me say that not all strangers are strangers.
Others are disguised long lost angels.
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