Julie comes home from work only to discover something in her house that wasn't there when she left. Something that brings back some not so pleasant memories.
Exhausted at the end of her work day, Julie struggled to stay awake as she slowly drove her blue Ford Escort into the driveway. Her unreasonable boss had been in an exceptionally bad mood today, expecting her to do the work of three people. She really enjoyed the work she did at the bakery, but she had about had enough. More people would have to be hired soon, or she would have to find another job.
Looking forward to a nice, hot cup of coffee, she retrieved her mail and newspaper as she walked into the small house that she rented. On her way to the kitchen, she glanced at the headlines of today's paper, “Stock Boy Bitten by Deadly Spider”.
She poured herself a steaming cup of cinnamon hazelnut coffee, added just a little cream, and relaxed at the table. Turning her attention to the paper, she discovered that the stock boy, who worked at a local grocery store, had been bitten while he was unloading bananas and putting them on the shelf. A Brazilian Wandering Spider had been hiding in them. Its bite was extremely poisonous, but thanks to some quick-thinking coworkers who had immediately rushed him to the emergency room, the boy would survive.
No other articles catching her eye, she looked through the rest of her mail. Nothing but junk. Out of the corner of her eyes, she caught a glimpse of something gray lying on the back of her living room sofa. Curious, she grabbed her cup of coffee and went to look. It was a man's charcoal fedora, blending in so well with its surroundings that she could hardly tell it was there. There had not been a man's hat in the house since the day John had walked out on her.
Bittersweet memories of him flooded her mind. John had been the love of her life, the very reason for her existence, until the day she discovered his secret. Unwittingly, she had uncovered the façade that he had been wearing throughout their entire relationship. The man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, the man she was going to marry, didn't exist.
One day while putting away his shirts, she had noticed the corner of a picture sticking out from the bottom of the shirts in the drawer. Curiousity overtaking her, she gently pulled the photograph out. A young boy and his parents stared back at her. Who were these people? She glanced at the back of it. Me, Mom, and Dad was scribbled on the back in familiar messy handwriting. Why hadn't he ever shown her this picture of him and his parents? Carefully, she looked at the picture again. She was sure that she had seen these people before. She gasped as she realized who they were and what had happened to them.
Shocked, she sat down on the bed as the details of the tragedy unfolded in her mind. She had been a young girl at the time. A neighbor of Albert and Laura Prentiss had noticed something strange was going on. Their mailbox was overflowing with mail, and there was a stack of newspapers on their porch. He hadn't seen their son, Alexander, going to and from school for at least a week. At first, he just assumed that the they were away on vacation. Then a black capped chickadee had flown into the glass on their garage door. Since there didn't seem to be anyone at home, and since he happened to have a fondness for birds, he walked over to see if he could help the tiny feathered animal. It was then he noticed that their car wasn't gone, it was locked up in the garage. . Concerned, he called the police.
When the police broke down the door of their house, they were knocked back by the smell of decaying flesh. What was left of Albert and Laura Prentiss was discovered in the kitchen, where they had collapsed. No trace of Alexander could be found. The police assumed that he had been abducted by whomever had killed his parents. A nationwide search was started, but Alexander had ever been located. The autopsies of Albert and Laura Prentiss revealed they had been slowly poisoned. Their murderer, who had so patiently administered the poison until it finally took its toll, escaped detection.
Memories of their time together floated through her confused mind. He had proposed to her only a week ago!
They met for the first time at a party. The mysterious new guy in town, he literally swept her off her feet. Just six months later, after a whirlwind romance, he asked her to marry him. They were taking a stroll through the park when, without warning, he knelt on the sidewalk in front of her. “Julie, the last six months have been so fantastic that I never want them to end. I want us to live them over and over for the rest of our lives. Will you please be my wife?”
