When Samantha Kane, a young software developer from Houston, Texas, made her annual visit to the Illinois cemetery where her father was buried, she did not expect to find a bouquet of fresh violets lying across his gravestone. At the same time, when Mark Benton moved into his new office at a small college in Colorado, he did not expect to find a dusty old manila envelope, one that had years earlier fallen behind a file cabinet. Yet the contents of that envelope would forever bring together these two strangers in ways they could never have imagined. From these chance happenings occurring hundreds of miles apart, Samantha and Mark are drawn together by a poignant mystery which begs to be unraveled. From the very beginning, your heart will race with anticipation as you try to second guess the ending. But this love story is unlike any other, in that the unexpected will keep you speculating until the very end. Something Left Behind is a story of unrequited love, of love lost and love found. Yet from that story comes another, one equally emotional and upliftinga story that will tug at your heart strings long after it has been told.
Something Left Behind
a novel By Steve Reynolds Trafford Publishing
Copyright © 2009 Steve Reynolds
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4269-1642-7Chapter One
Winter had come early this year to Preston Falls, Colorado, and with it a total snowfall well above the average. While snow was no stranger to this rural mountain community, the additional precipitation this winter had all but cut off the town from the rest of the county. Quietly tucked away some twenty miles off Highway 139 north of Grand Junction, Preston Falls was near the south entrance to Douglas Pass. The towering mountains that surrounded this small but well-kept town served to create a weather phenomenon each winter whereby its citizens could expect to see over twice the average snowfall of the entire state.
But this year had been particularly brutal, with the seasonal expectation having already been achieved by the third week of January. The town fathers who met each weekday morning for coffee at Mandy's Caf on Main Street predicted that the town had a real shot at breaking the snowfall record for a single season. At the very least, they believed Preston Falls had already experienced more snow this season than they could ever recollect seeing during any single winter during their lifetimes, record or not.
"Well, this is a record that I for one do not look forward to breaking," Mark Benton concluded, as he worked through his morning ritual of eggs, bacon, and hash browns. Mark, twenty-eight year old English professor at Mountain View College, was the only young person at the old-timer's table.
With the population of Preston Falls doubling every fall and winter as five hundred or so students arrived to attend Mountain View, the resident population tended to give the young foreign arrivals their space. Although most Preston Falls folks were very private people and were inclined to shy away from outsiders, they nevertheless appreciated the revenue the college brought to their small community. It was a balance that seemed to work, as the students themselves tended to spend their free time experiencing the many outdoor attractions for which the Colorado mountains were famous. Quite frankly, Mandy's Caf was simply not on their list of landmark venues.
Mark, however, was the exception to this rule. He had grown up in Preston Falls. For forty-two years, his father owned and operated the small hardware store three doors down from Mandy's Cafe. Mark's mother had spent most of her life teaching third grade at Preston Falls Elementary School. By default, this local lineage had bought Mark both the respect of the town and a seat each morning at this sacred table in a rear corner of Mandy's Caf. Although he was younger than the others who sat around the table that morning, he was after all one of their own.
"What would you know about records?" barked George Vogel. George was Preston Falls's one and only retired postmaster, and it was a distinction he seldom let others forget. To hear George tell it, there were no mail deliveries in Preston Falls before he was postmaster. None of course except those made by Pony Express.
Why, I can remember the winter of '47 when I carried a snow shovel with me on my mail route, digging through piles of the white stuff every step of the way!"
"Here we go again with another damn 'I can remember when ...' story," Bob Tyler hastened to interject. Bob was probably George's oldest and closest friend. Perhaps it was because of this longtime relationship that Bob was generally the only one brave enough to put George in his place. "If you've told that story once, George, you've told it a million times!"
"Yes and every time 'ol George tells it, the mail route grows longer and the snow gets deeper!" Mark added with an infectious smile that was always contagious to those around him.
With Mark's remark, everyone feasted on a hearty round of laughter at George's expense. It seemed that this was the very point of daily congregation-to poke fun at one of their own. No one was immune; the light-hearted ridicule would simply gravitate from one to another, as years of personal history were roasted over well-meaning coals of camaraderie.
Mark was only twelve when his father first allowed him to join this informal group. He had told Mark that it was a ritual for old friends to drink coffee and 'tell lies to each other.' During the years after his parents had lost their lives in a car accident near Colorado Springs, Mark had come to know that these gatherings each morning were really all about preserving time. Most of these men were now retired and were facing the inevitable that is common to all. With each passing year, the group seemed to lose yet another of its members. Nevertheless, the memories of those now gone were never forgotten ... not inside Mandy's Caf, and specially not at this table. There was seldom a morning that went by without someone recalling, "say, do you remember when ..." with everyone reaching the unanimous conclusion that, yes, that person was just about the finest person that had ever lived in Preston Falls. And most certainly, they would always agree, there would never be another person like that one.
With everyone still taking shots at George's 'I remember when' story, Mark, having now finished his breakfast and his third cup of coffee, rose from the table. "It's that time again, boys," Mark said. He began to search for his own winter coat amidst the cornucopia of seasonal coats, hats, scarves and gloves that adorned the wall hooks behind them. "I know that if I don't get out of here now, you'll all be trashing me next! And if you do, I'll be forced to defend myself with a vengeance!"
"Hell, boy, by the time you get the snow scraped off the windshield of your truck, these guys will be all over the fact that you're still single!" quipped Martin Dobbs, owner, manager, and sole popcorn-maker at the movie theatre located across the street from Mandy's. Since movies were only shown on the weekend, Martin spent most weekdays sitting inside Mandy's Caf. Because of this longtime routine, he had achieved the reputation of being the one person who knew more about what was going on in Preston Falls than anyone else.
"That's the damn truth," added George, who now saw this as the perfect opportunity to shift the fun from his doorstep to someone else's.
"Why am I not surprised?!" Mark countered. "You guys should just be grateful I came back home after six years away at college. Otherwise, who would you have to gang up on other than your tired old selves?" Having once again left them with that famous Benton smile, Mark dutifully departed Mandy's Caf for another day of teaching younger people the merits of writing while exercising proper, grammatically correct English.
Mark quickly brushed the snow from the windshield of his GMC Jimmy, put the vehicle into four-wheel drive, and headed north along the only road out of Preston Falls. Mountain View College, a small liberal arts and general studies institution founded some twenty-two years earlier, was located three miles outside of town, along the banks of the East Salt River. Its small, picturesque campus was framed on three sides by mountains that seemed to protect its inhabitants from the outside world. Though small and ever struggling to survive the lure of the larger universities, Mountain View continued to draw in just enough serious-minded students each year to support itself and the lives of its small group of faculty and staff.
Like most other schools, office space seemed to always be at a premium at the college. When Mark had returned home to Preston Falls three years earlier and had accepted the low-paying teaching position in the English department, he was told there was no office space available within his department. Consequently, Mark was forced to set up shop in a remote office located on the basement floor of Riggins Hall. While this move put Mark two floors away from the others who comprised his academic department, he found himself beside a couple of very friendly colleagues who made up the college's small history department.
Truth be known, Mark actually preferred the company of the two history professors over that of his own department faculty. The English professors at Mountain View had all written an assortment of fictional and non-fictional literary works, which helped further solidify their positions at the college. Mark, on the other hand, was still maturing as a teacher. By standards imposed by his colleagues, he had yet to publish anything of consequence. After three years at Mountain View College, he had come to believe this lack of expected publishing was a point of disappointment to the rest of his academic department. 'Publish or perish' seemed to be the key to tenure.
However, it wasn't that Mark didn't think about and hope for successful writing. Fact was, he often thought about publishing 'the great American novel.' He always believed that a truly great romantic story was lying dormant within of him, just waiting to be put onto paper. Yet another part of him believed the world already had enough dime-store romance novels. Consequently, the book remained unwritten.
Mark remembered how his mother would spend hours on end sitting on their front porch swing reading romance novels. Mark also remembered how his father had always referred to those same books as "literary pulp." His mother remained undaunted, however, by her husband's literary criticisms. She would simply smile and continue her reading. She seemed to find the deepest joy reading one teary-eyed story after another.
Like his mother, Mark, too, had spent many hours reading what others had written about love. He had often thought 'I wish I had said that ...', and recurrently wished he could find a love as meaningful as those described in the novels he read. Still, Mark's own romantic relationships as a student in high school and in college had all been short-lived. Typically, the more serious the girl would become, the more he wanted out of the relationship. He was often accused of being unable to make a serious commitment. In Mark's mind, however, he remained hopeful the 'right' girl would eventually come along.
Mark's few feeble attempts at writing a romance novel had failed miserably. He had since come to the conclusion that he had yet to understand love; therefore, it was impossible for him to write about it. He also realized that reading all the great love stories and romantic poetry in the world would not teach him the true meaning of love. Mark resigned himself to the fact that if true love was ever meant to happen in his life, it would undoubtedly happen when he least expected it. All the analysis in the world could do nothing to make it happen any sooner than was destined.
Mark turned the Jimmy into the entrance of the college and slowly made his way down the main road that looped through the small campus. This morning, he could not help but notice that the wall of plowed snow lining both sides of the road had grown another foot as a result of the snowplows overnight. If the temperature did not warm above freezing, giving the plowed snow a chance to melt, it might eventually be piled higher than his truck.
That thought gave Mark an uneasy feeling. He always thought of himself as a closet claustrophobic. It was just another one of those personal things he kept to himself; it would not be a pretty picture if Mark's weaknesses or sensitivities became public knowledge among the old-timers who graced Mandy's Caf each day.
He laughed at the thought of being a closet Claustrophobic. "Now that's an oxymoron, if there ever was one!" Mark exclaimed aloud. Like 'jumbo shrimp' and 'civil war,' the occasional absurdity of the English language never eased to amuse Mark. He often challenged his students to ponder such gems as "why aren't the words 'abbreviation' and 'monosyllabic' just a little bit shorter?", "why isn't there another word for 'thesaurus'?", "why isn't 'palindrome' spelled the same backwards as it is forward?", and "why isn't 'phonetic' spelled the way it sounds?"
'Words ... life's ultimate amusement,' he thought. As a professor of English, Mark sometimes wondered if he was in the wrong profession, since much of the very language he taught often made very little sense.
Mark turned into the snow-filled parking lot beside Riggins Hall and brought the truck to a stop. Gathering his briefcase full of student essays graded the night before, he cautiously traversed the icy sidewalk, entered the building, and proceeded downstairs to his office. As was usual during the winter months, Mark was welcomed by the seeming absence of heat in his little corner of the basement. Having grown accustomed to this phenomena-known by the college maintenance department as the-heat-is-working-just-fine-Mark had worn a pullover sweater specifically for this very reason.
A quick check of his daily schedule confirmed that today, Thursday, January 20, 2000, Mark had only one class to teach, a class on composition which was not scheduled until after lunch. Because of this light schedule, Thursday's this semester were Mark's favorite day. He quickly turned to his computer in an attempt to catch up on e-mails sent by his students, his colleagues, and, occasionally, an old friend from his days at Colorado State University. As the e-mail streamed into his desktop application from a server located elsewhere on campus, Mark noticed immediately that one was from old Martha Simmons ... Dr. Martha Simmons, Chair, Department of English Studies to be exact.
'Damn!' Mark thought. 'I wonder what that crazy old woman wants this time.' Just last week, she had wanted him to chair a curriculum committee. The week before that, she had expected him to pick up an extra class next spring, so that she could take a 'much needed' vacation. And the week before that ... 'Who even remembers?!' he thought in disgruntled agony.
Deciding it would serve no purpose to prolong the inevitable torture that was surely being bestowed upon him, Mark clicked open the e-mail from his academic leader and read the following:
Professor Benton: An office space has vacated on the second floor of Riggins Hall contiguous to the Department of English Studies ...
'Who the hell uses the word "contiguous" inside these forty-eight states?' Mark mused. He made a note to compliment Ms. Martha on her munificent verbosity at their next staff meeting.
... It is therefore in the best interest of our department that you move from your current office in the basement floor, Riggins Hall, Room 038, to the second floor of same, Room 212, as soon as possible. Please be advised that you are being asked to bring all of the furniture from your old office with you, since Room 212 has, at present, no furniture. You should seek the assistance of campus maintenance personnel with the moving of your furniture. I will expect to see you moved by Monday morning.
At first thought, the idea of moving did not bother Mark, nor did the thought of doing so quickly during the next few days. However, the thought of moving next door to the department chair herself sent a shiver down his spine. He had grown accustomed to the security found in the secluded bowels of the basement and to the light friendships that had evolved among its politically inert inhabitants. He liked the fact that he could come and go as he pleased, without falling victim to Ms. Martha's watchful eye and unforgiving scrutiny.
Still, Mark had been at Mountain View College long enough to realize that it would be an exercise in futility to even try to argue his disappointment with the aged department chair. Her tenured rule was supreme and her decisions were, without exception, final.
With a sense of purpose now forced upon him, Mark knew what must be done. He dutifully called the maintenance department. The call was answered by Charlie, who staffed the phone most days. Charlie agreed to send over two workers with a freight dolly to move Mark's desk, chair, filing cabinet, and four bookcases to his new office upstairs.
Mark printed out a note to his 1:00 o'clock English composition class, dashed up three flights of stairs, and posted the note on the door of his classroom. This hastily prepared notice declared that today's class had been unexpectedly cancelled and that assignments due today would be collected on Monday.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Something Left Behindby Steve Reynolds Copyright © 2009 by Steve Reynolds. Excerpted by permission.
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