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[continued from page 3]
* * * * *
The mystery rattles the town until it doesn't. The newspapers find better things to write.
One day there is a problem with the city's waste management. Later, a corruption of the city comptroller.
Mary's name is forgotten, and since there is no indication that she is dead, they never run an obituary.
Nor does the school hold a memorial in her honor.
After holiday break the principal clutches the microphone in his office and announces that grief counselors are available to students. He isn't implying anything, just reminding them.
* * * * *
It's spring, and a fisherman whose name isn't important stops his motorboat at the edge of a shore. A burlap sack half floating in the water. He almost continues on, but stops.
Please refrain from speculation.
For whatever reason he kills the engine. Leans over the boat and pulls it toward him. Everything shifts.
Probably a deer out of season, avoiding a fine.
* * * * *
It is not her, just garbage.
She is not in the sack, and she is not in the quarry. Six months later, she is not in the dumpster, either.
A few years come and go like principals.
Everyone who remembers Mary forgets.
Even Tim. And that’s all there is to say about him.
The police chief notes what appear to be bone fragments from the insides of burlap sacks and quarries. They are never Mary's.
Over a Thanksgiving break, one group assembles in somebody’s basement where they sip a few beers and snack on corn chips.
Around midnight, somebody says, “Hey, remember that one girl?” and someone else says, “Who?”
They are talking about some girl who got pregnant their senior year.
Nobody is talking about Mary.
* * * * *
Eventually, even Mary’s parents forget.
Not exactly, but as much as parents can. There’s a replacement child, a son, and Mary’s little sister’s now the big one.
Everybody reminds him how much he looks like his father.
B. J. Hollars is the editor of You Must Be This Tall to Ride (Writer’s Digest Books, 2009), an anthology of coming-of-age stories. He has served on staff at the Black Warrior Review. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Barrelhouse, Mid-American Review, Fugue, Faultline, The Southeast Review, DIAGRAM, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Puerto del Sol, and Hobart, among others.
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