The Short Answer

Abby didn't normally stop at garage sales. She despised the handmade, misspelled signs--"Garage Sale!!! Furnature, Baby cloths, Jewlery!!!"--and the masking tape price tags, and the guilt-driven purchases (like the ladybug-shaped foot massager she had purchased for $1 at her mom's neighbor's garage sale). Abby couldn't paw through someone's old junk and then refuse to buy anything, because wouldn't that be admitting that she thought all their possessions were nasty?

The old woman was the reason Abby pulled over on Monrovia Street, two blocks shy of her apartment complex.

"Howdy!" the woman called. She sat on a lawn chair under a large oak tree, next to a neat and properly spelled "garage sale" sign, and smiled so big, Abby expected her stained dentures to fall out.

Abby smiled back. The woman's driveway was a maze of rusty bikes, toy trucks, and card tables piled high with boys' clothing and toys. Abby recognized an original Optimus Prime Transformer, some He-Man action figures, and original Star Wars action figures on one of the tables.

"You know you could get a lot more than $1 for these?" Abby said, holding up the action figure of Bill Murray as Dr. Venkman in Ghostbusters.

"I need the space in my basement more than the money," the woman replied.

Abby spotted some newer-looking items on a table in the back of the woman's garage: a laptop, some Metallica CDs, a calculus textbook, an electric guitar, and a combination cordless phone and digital answering machine, all tagged $5.

"This phone looks brand-new," Abby remarked. "Does it work?"

"Course it works. My grandson gave me that for my eightieth birthday, last month."

"Oh. I thought it was for sale."

The woman laughed. "It is!"

"I'll take it then," Abby said. She jogged across the grass to hand five wrinkled dollar bills to the woman.

"Thanks, hon." The woman added Abby's money to a battered plastic school supply box. "Jason" was written on the lid in faded permanent marker.

For once, Abby was genuinely pleased with her purchase. "My phone's battery never recharges right, so this is really gonna help me out. I don't even know where my answering machine is. Buried in a box somewhere. I just moved here; I'm kinda lazy about unpacking."

"Where ya from?" the woman asked.

"St. Louis," Abby said.

"I remember when I took my grandson up in the Arch when he was five. He was so scared, he wouldn't let go of my hand the whole time!"

"Yep. It's not much fun if you're scared of heights."

"He's not scared anymore. He's about your age now," the woman said. "He doesn't need all this old junk anymore, and what on earth am I going to do with it?" She spread out her arms, as if to release all the items cluttering her driveway and garage.

"I'm surprised there aren't more people here," Abby said. She looked up and down Monrovia Street, and didn't see a single person. No dogs or cats, either. "I bet you'll sell everything. If my brother were here, he'd buy every single action figure. He grew up playing with all that stuff."

The woman smiled (her dentures held firm). Her blue eyes twinkled. "Jason loved his action figures. He's a sweet boy."

"Oh, wow, my brother's name is Jason, too," Abby said. "I wouldn't call him sweet, though."

"Jason would like you," the woman said, chuckling.

Abby thought she'd heard enough about Jason. "I need to get going. Thanks for the phone and answering machine. I'll put 'em to good use."

"All right, hon."

The woman waved as Abby pulled away from the curb.

Abby wondered if she should have offered more money for the phone. Surely the old woman was senile--she sold a gift from her beloved grandson for five bucks! And this particular Panasonic combination phone and answering machine retailed at fifty bucks (Abby had checked the price online as soon as she got home).

"But, then again, it might not even work," Abby muttered, unplugging the old phone in her kitchen, replacing it with the new one.

The red light on the answering machine came on right away, and above the "stop," "play," and "delete" buttons, a red number "3" blinked in the digital display window. "You have three new messages," a robotic voice kindly informed her.

"Didn't even bother to delete your messages, huh, Granny?" Abby said, amused. Her index finger hovered over the "delete" button for a moment, then punched "play" instead.

"First unheard message, Saturday, 7:09 P.M.: (Beep!) Gran? It's me, returning your call. I can't make it for supper tomorrow. Something's come up. I'll see you on Monday--laundry day. (Self-deprecating chuckle. Beep!)"

"He's still taking his laundry home to Gran? Loser alert!" Abby laughed.

"Second unheard message, Monday, 5:56 P.M.: (Beep!) Hey, it's Jason again. Sorry, but I'm not gonna make it over there tonight. Call my cell if you need me. I'm gonna crash at Jen's again. (Beep!)"

Abby rolled her eyes. "Oooooooh! So Jason's gettin' it on with his girlfriend while sweet old Gran's home alone. Nice."

"Third unheard message, Wednesday, 4:17 A.M.: (Beep! Muffled sobbing.) I wish I could've been there with you...I love you, Gran. (Beep!)"

Abby had to replay the last message several times to make sure she understood it. Poor Jason! She'd never heard a man cry like that before. She forgave him for missing supper with Gran and for his fling with Jen (the laundry thing, however, was unforgivable--she didn't care how much he cried).

It wasn't right that Gran had never heard these messages, Abby decided. Maybe Gran didn't know how to use the answering machine; that was probably why she'd sold it in the first place. I'll take it back, and show her how to play the messages...

The phone started ringing before Abby could unplug it. She checked the caller-ID display: Unknown Caller. Abby groaned. She didn't want to talk to a telemarketer, but she did want to make sure the phone worked, so, reluctantly, she picked up.

"Hello?"

"Tell him I love him," a low, female voice rasped.

"What? Who is this?"

"You're a sweet girl."

"Uh...Maybe if I knew who you were, I'd--" The harsh dial tone cut her off.

"What the heck was that?" Abby complained, yanking the phone cord out of the wall before the raspy, loony lady could call back. She tucked the answering machine under her arm and headed out the door, kicking all the boxes that stood in her way.

Abby expected to find the old woman counting her money in her lawn chair under the tree. But as she approached the woman's small brown home, she saw that the yard and driveway were empty. The garage door was closed. The "garage sale" sign was gone; in its place was a "for sale" sign with a grinning blonde realtor's phone number.

"I swear that sign wasn't there an hour ago," Abby said, parking in the driveway, in the spot where the table of 1980s action figures had been.

She got out of her car and searched the yard for evidence of a hastily abandoned garage sale. Surely a couple of toys or socks had fallen on the ground when the old woman was packing everything up. Or perhaps a masking tape price tag had come unstuck from one of the rusty bikes, and then re-stuck to a blade of grass? Abby found nothing. She checked every window, expecting to catch a glimpse of the old woman, laughing at her. Any second the old woman would hobble out the front door and invite Abby inside for cookies and milk, right?

Abby was sick of waiting, and, frankly, a little freaked out by the "amazing vanishing garage sale act" the old woman had somehow pulled. She marched up to the front door and rang the doorbell, and stood on her tiptoes to peer through the window on the door. She couldn't see anything beyond a bare entryway with a shiny linoleum floor. All the lights were turned off.

Abby rang the doorbell again. If she doesn't answer the door in the next minute, I'm leaving, she vowed. Come on, Gran. I'm sure you'd like to hear the messages from your grandson.

Then Abby heard something inside the house. A toilet flushing? Feel better now, Gran?! She pounded on the door.

"Just a minute!" someone with a distinctly un-Gran-like voice bellowed.

A young man stepped into the entryway, tugging a T-shirt over his hairy chest. Abby ducked down, blushing.

"You better not be a solisssss...solicitor!" the man slurred, yanking the front door open. He glared at her with bloodshot eyes--eyes the same shade of blue as his grandmother's.

"Jason?" Abby said.

"Who the hell are you?" His breath reeked of cheap beer.

Abby cringed. "I bought something at your grandmother's garage sale about an hour ago, and I thought...Maybe since you're home now, it doesn't really matter."

"What?!" Jason croaked. "My gran's dead! Sh-she died last month."

"But...I just saw her today. I bought this from her," Abby said, showing him the answering machine.

Jason sobered up immediately. "That can't be." He took the answering machine and turned it over in his hands. A small red heart sticker was stuck above the Panasonic model number on the bottom. Jason brushed the heart sticker with his thumb, and welled up. "I saw her take that sticker off the envelope from the birthday card I gave her. I didn't get why she stuck it on the phone."

Abby couldn't stop shaking. A blast of cold wind tickled her spine. She took a deep breath, and held on to Jason's arm for support. "Gran got your messages, Jason. She loves you."