The Diary
by Loretta Morris
Izzy punched her pillow as her younger sister, Trudy, tried to stifle her sobs. “Will you shut up!” she yelled. “We’re stuck here for the next few days and there’s nothing we can do about it! Now GO TO SLEEP.”
“You don’t understand, Iz, this is Aunt Edith’s bed,” sniffed Trudy, “and I have to sleep here. It’s not fair!”
“I’d sleep there if I could, but you know I’m allergic to the feathers in that old mattress. Dad will be so mad if he has to take me to the emergency room in the middle of the night. So just be quiet and go to sleep before he comes in, ok?”
“Can I sleep with you? Please?” squeaked Trudy.
Izzy let out a defeated sigh, “Oh all right, but no snoring. And keep your feet to yourself.”
Trudy sprang out of bed and sprinted across the dark room. “Oww! My toe!”
Izzy reached for the nightstand lamp. She clicked it on and saw Trudy rocking on the floor holding her big toe. “What happened?”
“I tripped on something,” Trudy sniffed, looking around, confused. “There!” She said, pointing to a floorboard which had become dislodged during her dash between the two beds.
Izzy crawled out from beneath her covers and sat down next to her sister, their long flannel nightgowns puddling around them. “Your toe looks ok,” she pronounced, “No blood.” Then, scooting over to the board, “We better put this back before Dad sees it. I think it’ll just slip right back in…Hey! What’s this?”
“What?” asked Trudy, turning her attention away from her toe.
Both girls peered into the newly revealed space under the floor. “It’s a book, Izzy,” Trudy whispered, her eyes widening.
Izzy lifted the little red leather book from its hiding place. The word “Diary” was embossed in ornate gold script across the front cover, and the letters E.B. occupied the lower right corner. A flimsy lock held the pages closed tight.
“E.B. Edith Bentley. Cool!” gasped Trudy, tracing the letters with her finger, “Bently was her name before she got married to Uncle Ed. This thing must really be old.”
“Shhh, not so loud. Do you want Dad to hear you?” Izzy jiggled the floor board back into place and turned to her sister, “Let’s read it.”
“I don’t know if we should,” answered Trudy biting her lip, “Diaries are private, you know.”
“You’re such a baby,” Izzy snapped. “Fine. I’ll read it by myself. And what could a little girl write that’s so private anyway? Oh, and by the way,” she added, “have fun sleeping in Aunt Edith’s bed.”
Trudy’s chin started to quiver as she looked from the diary to Aunt Edith’s bed and then back to the diary.
“Isabelle! Gertrude! Are you two still up?” their dad barked from the front room, “Turn off that light and go to sleep right now! We have a big day tomorrow! Don’t make me come in there!”
The girls scrambled into Izzy’s bed and snapped off the light.
“Now what?” Trudy whispered, “The diary’s locked and it’s too dark to see anyway.”
“No problem. Aunt Edith always keeps a flashlight in the nightstand, and we’ll just break the lock. I don’t think she’ll mind.”
Trudy slipped out of bed and opened the night stand drawer. After feeling around for a second she pulled out a flashlight and switched it on. A dim beam illuminated their corner of the room.
“Now the lock,” Izzy whispered. With just a little effort, she wedged her finger under the strap, jiggled the ancient lock, and, “Ha! That was easy!”
Huddled together, they opened the diary and saw that the first entry was from December 25, 1955.
Dear Diary,
My name is Edith Bently and I am 8 years old. Today is Christmas and you are my favorite present. You are just what I wanted! I also got a pair of ice skates and a doll that I named Dorothy. We have to go to church now, so I’ll write more later.
Your new friend,
Edith Bently
“Wow, look at that handwriting! It’s so perfect and old fashioned,” Trudy commented. “When I was eight you could hardly read my handwriting.”
“Well you’re 11 now, and I still can’t read it,” sniped Izzy.
“Why are you so crabby, Izzy, this is really cool!”
“Cool? It’s boring. I’m going to sleep,” she said, snapping the little book closed and pulling up the quilt as she turned to face the wall.
“No, not yet,” pleaded Trudy, shaking her sister’s shoulder, “Let’s just read a little more. Maybe it will get better. Please?”
“Ok, ok, quit shaking me,” Izzy scowled, “Ten more minutes. Hold the light steady.”
Izzy thumbed through the book, trying to find something more interesting than new skates and dolls named Dorothy, and stopped to glance at a page towards the middle of the book. “This is weird, Trudy. The handwriting changes. It’s different. It doesn’t look like Aunt Edith wrote this part when she was a little girl.”
“Read it, Izzy!”
“The date on this one is June 26, 1987. She must have been at least…let me figure this out… she was 39 when she wrote this. What 39 year old writes in a diary?”
Trudy shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know, just read it.”
“Ok, here goes.” Izzy cleared her throat and began:
I’m very concerned about my nephewWalter.
“That’s Dad!” Trudy cried.
“Shhh. Let me finish,” Izzy scolded.
He’s only 8 years old, but already he seems to have certain unusual tendencies. Valerie and Nick tell me he hasn’t got any friends. None of the other children in the neighborhood seem to like him. He’s perfectly polite, almost too polite, when he’s here, but I walk around on eggshells all the time. I just can’t explain it, but he has an evil look in his eyes. He’s my sister’s boy and I know I should accept him and love him just the way he is, but, honestly, he scares the living shit out of me.
“What do you think she meant?” Trudy asked, surprised at the use of the word shit by her prim and proper great aunt. “I know dad has a bad temper sometimes, but evil? Keep going, Iz.”
Izzy flipped to an entry dated a year later, June 28, 1988, and read:
Walter is back for another week-long visit. Valerie seems so jumpy, but she tells me that everything is going well. Everything, that is, except that their dog Buster got loose while Walter was walking him last month, and they never found him. Walter didn’t seem too upset by it. In fact, when I told him I was sorry about it, all he said was, “Stupid dog deserved it.” Then he showed me a scar on his arm from a bite. Funny, I always thought Buster was the gentlest dog I’d every met. Something about his story doesn’t sound right, but I don’t want to interfere.
The girls looked at each other. “Should we keep reading?” whispered Trudy in a voice to soft Izzy could barely hear her.
Izzy nodded. “I think we should, OK?”
“OK.”
Izzy chose an entry from 1995 and began:
Valerie is at the end of her rope about what to do with Walter. Ever since Nick left her, Walter’s behavior has been getting more and more disturbing. It seems Walter is quite the ladies man, now that he’s 16 and a high school junior, but he usually only goes out with a girl once or twice before there’s trouble. Valerie’s gotten phone calls from the parents of several young ladies that Walter’s dated. Most just warn Valerie to keep Walter away from their daughters, but she said one actually threatened to press charges! They said he tried to rape their daughter! Well, of course Walter denies everything, and said the girl really wanted it – things just got out of hand. It’s just that he’s so darn handsome and charming, the girls want to be near him even though they know they shouldn’t. I’ve always thought that he’s a bad seed, but now others are starting to see it too. His parents better do something with him before he really hurts someone. I pray he hasn’t already done something terrible.
Both girls laid back on the pillow, each thinking about what they had read, Trudy’s eye’s welling up. Suddenly, Izzy popped up. “Mom!” she said, then clamped her hand over her mouth.
“What does Mom have to do with it?” Trudy asked with a hint of panic in her voice.
“Hold the light!” Izzy skipped through several entries until she reached the date November 14, 2006. With trembling hands and voice she read:
I am heartbroken. Today Walter called with the terrible news that his wife Elaine is dead. He said she slipped and fell in the shower and hit her head. A few hours later she just collapsed and died! Those poor little girls! Motherless at just age 2 and 4! What will they do? I know he must be in shock but he seemed so calm…. Dear Lord, please don’t let my greatest fears be true!
“What do you think it all means, Izzy?” Trudy whispered on the verge of tears. “You don’t think…”
“Let’s just read the last entry before we jump to any conclusions,” Izzy stated, trying to be matter-of-fact, but struggling to stay calm. She skipped over several pages until she came to the latest entry, dated just a week before, January 16, 2015.
Walter called this morning and said he is going to pay me a visit later this afternoon. I don’t know what he wants, but I’d better get this little book into its hiding place before he gets here. Over the years I’ve had the feeling that he suspects that I think he had something to do with Elaine’s death. Maybe I’m just a suspicious old lady, but there have been so many disturbing things over the years and I can’t stop thinking about it. If he ever finds this book, God help me. It’s time for me to go to the police with my suspicions – I should have done it years ago. I wish my dear Ed was still alive, he’d have know what to do next. Maybe I’ll just wait until I know what Walter wants.
At that moment, the flashlight beam faded away. The girls laid back down, too scared to speak.
*****
“Izzy! Trudy! Breakfast is ready!”
Both girls immediately snapped open their eyes, surprised that they had fallen asleep after their terrifying night.
“Izzy, do you think it’s true?” Trudy whispered.
“I don’t know.” Izzy felt around the covers. “What did you do with the diary and the flashlight, Trudy?”
“I didn’t do anything with them. Where did they go?”
The girls tumbled out of bed and frantically looked everywhere, even under the floorboard, but both items were gone.
Izzy turned to her sister, “Oh my God, Trudy!”
There was a knock at the door, and their dad entered, handsome in his dark suit and blue and gray striped tie. “Let’s get moving, ladies.” He smiled and stared at the girls. “Aunt Edith wouldn’t be pleased if we were late for her funeral, would she?”