A Watch in Time – Chapter 11, Part 1

A WATCH IN TIME

A Full Length Short Story by Golden Keyes Parsons

Chapter Eleven – Part 1

Click here to start with Chapter One

Two young women came out the front door of the house Lily Kate and David grew up in—the one with the “Rooms For Rent” sign now in the front yard. “Hi!” The typical Baylor greeting of the day indicated they must be college students.

“Hi.” David smiled, and stood aside as the coeds came down the stairs of the porch.

Lily Kate grabbed his arm, and pulled him up the steps. “Stop your flirting. We’re not really, remember?”

“Can’t blame a guy for enjoying the moment.”

Lily Kate chuckled and and shook her head. They walked across the porch, and peered into the bay window to the dining room. A couple of young people were clearing the table.

“David, when did Gramma and Poppy buy the house?”

“It wouldn’t have been Gramma and Poppy. It would have been our great-grandparents.”

“But we owned the house during the Civil War.” Lily Kate walked to the porch swing and sat down. She closed her eyes, and rocked the swing into motion.

“Careful. Those things tump over pretty easy.” David paced in front of Lily Kate with his hands in his pockets. “C’mon, Sis. You’re the history buff. Think.”

She stopped the swing’s motion with the toe of her sandal. “I remember now. But I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

“Give it to me straight.”

“I remember they almost lost the house during the depression, but they held onto it until right before World War II. Then when all the men enlisted, they couldn’t make the mortgage, and the bank moved in and foreclosed on it.”

“Do you know who bought it?”

She shook her head.

“ I wonder if any of the family’s possessions are still around—in the attic perhaps? Like the album?”

“That’s probably a long shot, but let’s give it a try.” Lily Kate stood and sent the swing wobbling from side to side.

They hesitated at the front door, then opened the screen and walked in. To their right over the archway was a sign declaring “Office” where the parlor used to be. A woman with her hair twisted in a bun at the neck sat behind a large desk, her back to them. She was dressed in a drab gray calico print dress with a high neck. A black rotary phone lay almost buried underneath file folders and papers, and a desk plaque proclaimed “Edna Kleine.” Keys hung from brass hooks on a board suspended on the wall behind the desk.

“Ahem. Excuse me.” Lily Kate approached the desk as the woman swirled around in a wooden office chair.

“You again.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The woman stood and folded her arms. “How many times do I have to tell you all that we’re not interested in selling the house? I know it belonged to your family, and I’m sure it’s painful for you to see it in the ownership of another person, but that’s the way it is. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, I see.” Lily Kate stepped back.

“Well, that’s fine, Mrs. … uh …” David glanced at her name plaque. “ … Mrs. Kleine. We understand. But that’s not why we are here.”

“I don’t have any vacant rooms. Maybe next fall, but not right now.”

“That’s not why we are here either.”

Mrs. Kleine quirked her eyebrows and waited…

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Join us next Friday for part 2 of chapter 11.

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