What Was Missed | The Story Vault

What if one item could change how you seen someone's whole life?

I challenged myself to write a short story answering that question. There were many other rules that were applied to it. It could not involve murder, or villains. I wanted to write outside my normal genre. The prompt was someone who had passed away and their home had been cleared out and emptied. Yet there was one thing that had been missed.

When I do these exercises I always wonder how other writers would take the same prompt. We all see thing so differently and that is part of the beauty of the written arit form

Please enjoy my short story What was missed?

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What Was Missed?

It had taken them the better part of a month to sort through their mothers house. The four of them were grateful now that the family home was not a two story farm house. This meager 1500 square foot house had been enough to go through. Still, they had finally made it to the end. The realtor would be here tomorrow for pictures and it would be listed within the week. 

Everything had been given away or sold at the estate sale. Today they had spent going through what was left of boxes and totes. These were the memories, the mementos the items that could not be sold to strangers. They got rid of all the furniture, dishes, their mothers books and her clothes. They each had their own pile to load into respective vehicles of their old trophies, yearbooks and toys. Each one child had gone down memory lane and the month before had been filled with many tears but way more laughs. 

Carol loved all the reminiscing of their time spent here in this old house. Tails of sneaking out and climbing back in windows. Of blocks placed just so you could get in and mom moving them on you. Then you were knocking on the window waking up a brother or sister to help you back in, praying mom did not hear. Still, at breakfast mom would ask you about your outing the night before while you sat shocked and dismayed that she knew. 

They had shared so much with each other over the years. Given the cramped house they didn’t have a choice. It was only a two bedroom house with one bathroom. Their parents had slept in what most would have called the sunporch back then. 

When their mother had first gotten sick they had agreed that they did not want to be rushed when this time came. The house would be empty before anyone else walked through it. 

  Vivian’s house may not have been big but she filled it. She was also notorious for squirreling money away. You never knew where you might find a five dollar bill or even a twenty if she had it to hold on to. She had never been wasteful and her children never saw her as anything other than a hard worker. Someone who did not know the meaning of the word relax or quit. 

Therefore they wanted and needed time to go through everything in this house. They also needed time to digest their own grief and memories as they went through this process. It is never easy going through someone else's things. Especially your moms.

They had all been raised that they were not allowed in her room unless invited in. It was just an unspoken rule and they had been afforded the same respect as she asked for. So when they had to enter her bedroom that first time without her there to allow entrance it was a hard lump to swallow for each of them. 

The first time Carol walked into her moms room her breathing became rapid and she had to sit down. The room was not big; it had a full size bed, a long wooden dresser with a mirror and small night stand next to the bed. The closet wasn’t really a closet; her mother had purchased an armoire to match the light pecan wood of her dresser. 

Going through the dresser drawers was even harder. She had never opened them, not once in her life. Here lay her mothers intimates, slips, bras, panties. Things her children had never seen, not even on wash day. 

How had she managed that? Carol mused as she continued that day with the dresser. How did she keep us from seeing her personal items or were we just blind and didn’t pay attention. 

The hardest thing for Carol had been emptying her mothers purse. Going through her wallet, where she still kept those little 2” x 3” photos of children. Her personal space was hard to invade for Carol each time she did her heart would race. 

Vivian had been an amazing woman, a pinnacle of strength in all of their eyes. She had been forced to raise the four of them alone when Richard had died of a heart attack at the young age of 32. Carol remembers walking beside the casket down the road, she had only been twelve at the time. She was the oldest of the four, Margaret, then Daniel and the baby of the family was Joseph. He had only been five when dad passed. 

They were walking through each room, their footsteps echoing loudly off the empty walls. She walked through her mothers kitchen. The color faded from the sun but still a sunny yellow. She remembered the sunflower curtains that hung there when she was a child. She had kept her mother's recipe box. Promising to copy the cards for the others.

 Joe and Dan were in their old bedroom. They were talking about work and their kids, their voices loud and bouncing around. The sound carried through the whole house. 

Carol wraps her arms around herself as she enters the room Margaret and her shared. It looks large now, but oh how tiny it was when they both had been in here. A flood of memories threaten to overwhelm her and she shakes her head to dispel them. 

  There was one closet in the whole house and they had all used it. Above the door was their family motto painted in their mothers hand "True strength isn't about preventing the doors from locking, it’s making sure you have the key to open them when the world leaves you in the dark." Vivian lived by that and raised her four by that as well. Each one of them could recite it by heart.

   The girls' clothes were on one side and the boys clothes were on the other. Then each side had been divided between the two. Sounds kind of silly now but somehow her mother made it work. The closet had been between the two bedrooms. The boys in a blue room on the left side and the girls in a pink room on the right.         

Carol is still not sure how the five of them survive inside this small house. It was a true tribute to her mother's resilience and strength. She did not think that she could do it with her two boys and husband.

  She was just about to walk out of the closet when she noticed something on the shelf in the closet. Curious, she lifts herself up on her tiptoes to get a better look but still can not see what is up there. Unfortunately, she may be the oldest of the four but she is also the shortest of the four. She pokes her head around the corner of the closet.

“Hey Dan… Joe!” She didn’t need to be too loud as the sound traveled well. “Whoever, I need some assistance” Both her brothers came in to see what was happening. “There is something up there and I can not reach it.”

In true brother fashion, they both start laughing at her short status. Joe was the first one to reach in the closet. “No problem, shorty I can get it for ya.” Dan and he both laughed while Carol just rolled her eyes and tapped her foot.

Joe reaches up into the closet but whatever it was it was stuck to the shelf. Dan pushes past Joe and squeezes into the tight closet which forces Carol into the far corner. He is a few inches taller than Joe. “Looks to be a large envelope.” He pulls his pocket knife out of his right jeans pocket and flicks the blade open. Joe moves out into the small hallway getting out of harm's way. 

Carol seizes the opportunity to wiggle past Dan to get herself out of the closet as well. Dan uses the edge of his knife to loosen the corner of the envelope. He carefully pries it up from the shelf. Once he gets it loosened it pulls easily the rest of the way off the shelf. He hands Carol the manila 6” x 9” envelope and folds the blade closed on his knife.  

“How did we miss that?” Dan asked “We scoured this place top to bottom” He scratches his head. 

Carol flipped the envelope over in her hand so she could see the front. The return address was covered in a thick layer of dust and her fingers left trails as she moved it. 

“Here, let me see it” Joe took it  and gave it a quick flick across his knee knocking some of the dust off and sending a cloud up into the air surrounding them all. Everyone started coughing and yelling at Joe. He smiled “Well, I was trying to help” He handed the envelope back to Carol.

“What is it Carol?” Dan asked just as Margaret joined them. 

“Basement is clear” Margaret pushes her salt and pepper hair out of her face. “What’s that?”

Carol looks up at them “It's from the Washtenaw County Probate Court, Mental Health Division” They all raise their eyebrows at her. She shrugs her shoulders as she flips the envelope over and bends the metal clasps to open the flap. The sound of the heavy paper sliding out is almost eerie in the empty house. “Maybe we should go out on the porch.” She says pushing the paper back in and starts walking that way before anyone can argue. 

The old wood screen door slams behind her as she descends the concrete steps. Once at the bottom she takes a deep breath. Her hands were shaking as her sibling joined her. Once everyone was there she finished pulling out the papers. Inside was a multi-part, carbon-copy legal form. They are all gathered around her looking over her shoulders. The top of the form read “Order for Immediate Custody and Emergency Psychiatric Evaluation”

“What the hell?” Dan says from her left “For who?”

Carol quickly reads down the page as she is sure her brothers and sister are doing also. “It is for mom, dated August 11th, 1973.” Carol turns slowly to look at Margaret. “That is five days after you were born.” 

Margaret's breath sucked in. 

“They took mom?” 

All their faces drained of color and the silence between them was deafening. 

 “No one ever said a word about this happening to us.” Joe was the first to speak as he reached for the papers in Carol's hands. She let him have them and watched as he flipped through them. “It explicitly orders the Washtenaw County Sheriff to take mom into custody and transport her immediately to Mercywood Sanitarium. Where they would keep her for 5 days for a psychiatric evaluation.” 

Dan had left the group and went to sit on the front porch steps. 

“Sorry guys.” He mumbled “I wasn’t sure my legs would hold me, I had to sit down.” They didn’t ask if it was from the shock of the news or from his motorcycle accident three years ago. It didn’t really matter, they all followed his lead and went and sat down beside him.

“What did mom do that would have them taking her away to Mercywood?” Joe is looking off into the field, his eyes wide. “I mean we never saw any signs she was crazy…well I didn’t.” They all nodded their agreement but this didn’t make sense either.

“I didn’t even know that they actually took people to Mercywood.” Dan told them. “I seriously thought that was just a scare tactic they used on us growing up.”  

Margaret pulled her blue sweater closer and wrapped it around her chest. “Mom was different, no doubt about it but she wasn’t crazy.” Margaret stopped and flicked a piece of lint from her pant leg. “Anyways, raising four kids is not easy for anybody and she did it alone.”

  Carol was torn on whether she should mention her memory. She only had bits and pieces of it and it was foggy. She was never really sure it had been real. Not to mention the pieces were so fragmented. She had been so young and everyone said that she could not possibly have accurate memories. Still, she did remember men in heavy coats coming into this house, her mother crying, and a sudden, quiet week where she was just gone. She was always told "Mommy was just resting at a clinic." 

Seeing the official Sheriff's custody order proves that memory wasn't a nightmare; it had in fact been real. She had never shared that memory with her brothers and sisters. She had been told to forget about it. It had been a nightmare and not to dwell on it. Still she remembers eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Probably why even in her 50’s she disliked them so much. 

She explained her memory to her brothers and sister. At least what she could remember, it had been so long ago. Still, as she was talking they all started chiming in with memories of their own that added to the story. Not so much about the week mom was gone but about her life in this house.

They were discovering a whole new side to their mother they had never known before. Amazing even at their ages they could look back at memories and see them with new eyes. 

Carol looks at her siblings “I think mom was terrified of something like that ever happening again.” she paused. “After she gave birth to each of you boys she went and stayed with her moms for a week.”

“That’s right we all went and stayed with grandma Stevens.” Margaret laughed. “Everyone but dad.” 

“Do you think dad had her committed?” Joe asked, looking from one face to the next. 

“We will never know, but I would like to think he would not have done that to her.” Carol put her hand on Joes. “He did love her. Grandma Williams, now I would not have put it past her. Not even for a minute.”

“Why do you say that?” Dan stretched out his left leg and flexed his ankle a couple times.

“You guys were young and Grandma Williams was pretty old when you came along. But she hated mom. She never thought she was good enough for dad. I could see her doing that to mom.” a breeze had picked up and was blowing leaves across the drive as Carol spoke.

“Dad didn’t get along very well with his mother if I remember right.” Margaret rubbed her finger along her lower lip as she spoke.

“No he didn’t and I would bet any amount of money this was the reason why.” Carol stood up and started pacing the sidewalk in front of the steps. “Can you imagine how bad dad felt the day they hauled mom away.”

“Not to mention that he had two small children to take care of on his own, thanks to his mother!” Joe

was rubbing his hands on the knees of his pants. 

“Do you think that is why mom always hid money?” Dan's tone was serious “Do you think she was worried it might happen again?” 

“I am sure that incident traumatized her for the rest of her life and then when dad passed he wasn’t there to protect her from his mother. I think I would have been afraid of what she might have been capable of.” Margaret added.

“It does explain a lot about the skills that mom learned over the years and some of the things that she did to this house. Sometimes this house felt like a fortress.” Dan started laughing “Remember when she changed the locks on all the doors and put in those high tech locks.”

“Oh man, it took us forever to learn the codes to get in and she would not allow us to write them down.” Joe giggled remembering.  

“Did you see the motto is still written over the closet door?” Carol asks them all. Everyone shakes their heads. “I am starting to think that it has a way deeper meaning. At least it did to mom.” They all go quiet as they contemplate what it might have meant.

Dan is the one who repeats the motto. "True strength isn't about preventing the doors from locking, it’s making sure you have the key to open them when the world leaves you in the dark." He shakes his head and smiles. “Mom was pretty damn smart, she made that fit whatever she needed it to fit but ultimately it was her reminder to never let them lock her up again.”

“She refused to ever let them take her freedom and she made sure we all had the skills we needed to maintain our freedom come hell or high water.” Joe stood up and walked over to the old garden. “Thanks mom for everything you ever did for us and for everything you taught us but most of all for giving us the strength to stand up for ourselves” 

“They can say what they want about Vivian Williams but she was a force to be reckoned with and we will all miss her.” Carol walked over to join Joe she smiled and a single tear slipped down her cheek “But we carry her with us every day in the lessons she taught us and me personally I see her in my mirror as I pass by” 

Margaret came up behind Carol and Joe “Oh yea there are times I hear her come out of my own mouth.” Her laugh is robust and hearty. 

Dan had joined his siblings at the garden that their mother had loved. “She will never be far from us no matter where we are. Because we have each other.” The siblings hugged and said their goodbyes to each other and to their childhood home. Each leaving with a new understanding of their mother and who she was.

Carol looked back one last time. Above the bedroom closet, the words were still there, faded beneath fifty years of dust. She had always believed her mother was teaching them how to open doors. Today she finally understood. Vivian had been teaching herself how never to let anyone close one behind her again.