There Was an Old Woman Read Online Free PDF

noticed a fancy new flat-screen TV hung on the wall where there’d always been a string sculpture of an owl mounted on mustard-colored burlap.
    The only part of the living room that felt familiar was the fireplace and the mantel over it. Sitting there were framed photographs: Ginger and Ben at their wedding, Evie’s high school graduation picture, her dad. Evie picked that one up and wiped away a layer of dust. It was one of the few photographs that had survived the fire that nearly destroyed this house when she was six years old.
    For an instant, Evie smelled smoke, even though she knew nothing was burning, and for a moment she saw herself standing across the street with Mom and Ginger, watching flames shoot from the roof of their house, knowing that Blackie and her litter of puppies were trapped in her parents’ bedroom closet.
    She shook off the memory. Until yesterday, her mother had been living in this . . . squalor was the only word for it. She swallowed a lump in her throat. What on earth had happened? Her mother had never been a hoarder. Even at her worst, she’d cared about appearances. She’d always kept a neat house, and never went out without lipstick. Her grammar and table manners were impeccable. Something must have come unscrewed.
    Returning to the kitchen, Evie opened the refrigerator, expecting the worst. But there turned out to be very little inside. On the top shelf sat a baking dish. She lifted the foil. Whatever was in it had shriveled and desiccated. She peered into a pink bakery box and poked at the remains of a mummified cake, its pink-and-white frosting hard to the touch. A half gallon of milk was dated four weeks ago. The veggie bin contained a plastic bag with a slimy head of lettuce in it and a bag of something that looked like prunes and smelled of rotten egg.
    All of it had to go out. Now. Evie undid the twist on a half-full garbage bag already on the floor. A sharp medicinal smell rose from the open bag and she peered inside. Empty liquor bottles. She pulled one out. Vodka. Grey Goose. Her mother had moved up to an expensive brand.
    Evie pushed a pile of papers off the kitchen chair and sat. As far as she knew, her mother’s only sources of income were what she got as the widow of a firefighter—a pension and Social Security. So how could she afford expensive vodka and a brand-new high-def TV?
    But before Evie could follow that thought, she heard a scrabbling overhead. Instinctively she ducked. Then she looked up at the stained, cracked ceiling. Above her was the slope-ceilinged bedroom she and Ginger had shared. As she stared she heard more sounds, like something hard rolling across a wood floor. More scrabbling.
    Vermin—Evie shuddered—had to have gotten in upstairs. What she wanted to do was run out of the house screaming. Instead, she waded through the kitchen, pushed aside the bags stacked in front of the broom closet, and opened the door. Its orderly interior seemed to belong to a different house. Standing on the floor beside a bucket filled with cleaning supplies were a broom and a carpet sweeper. On the shelf over them, clean rags were folded beside a pocketed canvas bag filled with garden tools. In that bag Evie found a pair of leather work gloves.
    Armed with the broom and the gloves, Evie returned to the front hall. She looked up into the dark stairwell. If only she could pawn this problem off on someone else.
    Slowly, she climbed the stairs. In the near pitch-black of the upstairs landing, she stopped and pressed her ear to the closed bedroom door. She could hear movement on the other side. Rustling. A squeak. A rolling marble sound, again followed by the scrabbling. Then a thump.
    Evie stomped hard on the floor. Silence followed. She imagined raccoons or squirrels or, God forbid, skunks on the other side of the door, frozen and waiting for her next move.
    She groped for the doorknob, twisted it, and with a bravado she wasn’t sure she