REKINDLED YOUTH

REKINDLED Part 2

  CHAPTER TWO

It had been three days since Dale had lunch with Sandra, and he was getting a little antsy about a phone call. He had driven to town, gotten his mail (no sign of Sandra) and was sitting in Doug's Diner having Hot Chocolate as a prelude to breakfast and staring at the street. The snow was all gone now, not a patch of white to be seen, and the sky was blue with a few high feathery cirrus clouds. Ordinarily, he would be thinking about Flying, Hunting or Fishing (or writing about them) but the puzzling events of late troubled his mind. He looked through the unusually large stack of mail and picked out the interesting pieces. He found a couple of envelopes with checks in them - good news. And then he found the little purple envelope with the return address, ' Sandra Golden, P.O. Box 245, Green Ridge, WA' . He tore it open, opened the enclosed letter, and his heart sank as he read, "Dale, I hope you will forgive me for taking the cowards way out. It didn't go the way I had planned and I am ashamed and confused. I am a lot weaker than I thought I was. Your original assessment of me was right, so please just forget me and go on with your life. And please, please don't try to find me. Sandra".

He just sat there in stunned silence, mind racing over the cryptic message. A load of questions gripped his thinking. Did she care for me at all? Is she mentally ill? How had she 'planned' it? What did she mean by 'original assessment' ? Had he known her before? That last question was the one that really haunted him. The only way the letter made any sense (aside from her being 'cuckoo for cocoa puffs') was that she had known him before. He quickly dismissed the cuckoo scenario, because she had acted rationally and intelligently. But where, or when, could he have known her.

Dale rose, stuffed the mail in his jacket pocket, gulped the last of the warm chocolate and went to the counter to pay. Erlene must have sensed something by his demeanor, remarking, "bad news?". He handed her a five spot, mumbling "Yeah, I don't feel like breakfast. Keep the change. See you later". He went out and got in the truck and started slowly toward home. The road was blocked halfway there by half a load of hay, and he pulled over on the shoulder. He got out and saw that Charlie Hensley's trailer had a blowout, and he quickly joined a few others in helping to clear the road and reload the hay. The warm work in the cool air seemed to clear his head and he forgot about Sandra for awhile. After sweeping up the road, and helping the deputies to reopen traffic, he climbed in the truck and returned home . He walked around the property for a quick inspection and then sat in the Cessna for awhile. The faint smell of 100LL gas and the look of the instruments was comforting to his senses, especially at this time.

Dale sat at his kitchen table with a blank notebook and a pen. This was the usual way he figured out things, putting it on paper point-by-point and line-by-line in the form of a flow chart. This had helped him solve many cases when he was a Deputy. He placed the Title "Who is Sandra Golden?" at the top, followed by the subhead, "Where or When did I know her?".

He placed the observation:

"1. It must have been a long while ago, because I don't forget faces." as the first point. Secondly, he listed

"2. Clues Sandra may have given me" . Under this heading, he listed what he could remember of her story:

A. "a long history of imminently forgettable dates, punctuated by

loneliness."

B "I did have one memorable attraction in eighth grade, a boy that I

haven't forgotten yet. Some would call it 'Puppy Love', but it was far

more than that."

C. "His family moved out of state and I never saw him again."

D. "Unrequited Love still hurts, even when you're only 14".