At the Corner of King Street by Mary Ellen Taylor Page B

became a round end table. A rusted refrigerator from the 1930s was sanded, repainted, and fashioned into a bookshelf. The old and broken found new life.
    Restless, I rose and slipped on my shoes. Moving quietly, I walked the hallway to the door that led to the stairs. Carefully, I unlatched the deadbolt and clicked on the staircase light. Quietly, I moved down the stairs, wincing when one or two creaked.
    In the warehouse, I flipped on the main light and took my first really good look around.
    Again, I was struck by the emptiness. Once, nearly fifty lights hung from the ceiling. Lanterns, chandeliers, sconces, and pendant lights cast a warm glow over the rows of reclaimed doors, stained glass windows, fireplace hearths, and so many odds and ends I didn’t think it possible to catalogue them all.
    Moving toward the counter where I’d worked, I pressed my hands on the dusty countertop, taken aback that time had whittled this vibrant place to what amounted to skin and bones. One of my last jobs here included cataloguing keys and locks. I glanced under the counter, half expecting to see the dusty box filled with keys. All I found was a stash of papers and invoices that looked in dire need of sorting. Igrabbed a handful of papers and glanced through bills, flyers, site directions, and receipts. There was no real order to the stack.
    â€œOh, Grace.”
    Instead of returning to my bed and certain tossing and turning, I began to sort papers. Making order out of chaos calmed my nerves.
    By six in the morning, I’d sorted through all the papers and discovered that Grace’s salvage yard was on the verge of closure. She received several generous offers, which it seemed she ignored. Zeb said she’d suffered a stroke in the last year, but judging by the ignored papers, she’d started unraveling long before.
    Guilt jabbed me in the back. Grace was thrilled when I joined her company after college. Once or twice she mumbled I was her saving grace. And then I left.
    â€œDamn it.” I neatly stacked all the sorted receipts and put them back under the counter. I thought about calling Scott, needing to hear his voice, but decided against it. He was already headed into the fields and out of cell phone range. I’d try Scott around ten, when he normally returned to his office.
    Rising, I shoved fingers through my hair and padded down the hallway to the single bathroom in the apartment. A flower mosaic made up of black and white hexagon-shaped tiles covered the floor of the small room. There was no shower but rather a claw-foot bathtub that Grace and I salvaged the summer of my twelfth birthday from a farm an hour west in Middleburg, Virginia. The pedestal sink, another rescue, offered a few slim ledges barely wide enough for my toothbrush, and above it hung an oval framed mirror with silver backing that was thinning and fading on the bottom edges.
    I turned on the tub water and stripped. Thankfully, I packed a small bag, somehow remembering or knowing that no Shire disaster was as quick as anyone thought.
    The bath restored a little of my energy and by the time I redressed into the one change of clothes, a pot of coffee brewed in the kitchen.
    Without a word, Grace poured a cup of coffee for me in a large blue mug and splashed in a dollop of milk. Breakfast was fruit and toast. Neither of us spoke as we ate.
    I glanced at my watch. “It’s seven. Hospital visiting hours start in thirty minutes and doctors will be making their rounds. I want to catch Janet’s doctor and find out how she’s doing.”
    Grace’s lined thin hands cradled her mug. “What about Social Services?”
    â€œOne problem at a time.”
    Grace rose from the table and made herself a second cup of coffee. She cradled her large white mug in hands bent by arthritis. “Don’t toss that baby away, Addie. Don’t do it.”
    Anger snapped. “I’m meeting with Janet’s doctors.”
    â€œI