Episode One: The Letters

Mabel, Episode 1, The Letters, in which nothing becomes clear. You've reached Mabel Martin. I'm not here to take your call right now, so please leave a message after the beep and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks.

Hi, Ms. Martin. My name is Anna Limone. I'm with Kings County Home Help. For the past six months, I've been your grandmother's live-in carer. I got your... I know this is a little bit unorthodox, but I got your number from a friend of a friend, or an acquaintance of a friend, I guess. I don't. That doesn't really matter. It's not important. I'm calling because it's regarding your grandmother, actually. She's fine. I mean...

She's as well as can be expected given the circumstances. This isn't one of those calls. There's just something that I would really like to talk to you about if possible. I'd appreciate it if you could give me a call back on this number. I'm available every day from 2 until 5 or anytime after 9 p.m. Okay, thank you very much. Bye. hi this is anna limone um i called three days ago and i haven't i haven't heard back so i thought i'd just try again in case you didn't receive my last message

I was actually thinking that maybe my phone is on private number or something and you didn't have my number to call me back. So it's 6-0- Maybe he tried to call, but it didn't go through. I know that reception can be really weird up here in the hills. Or... Maybe I didn't have my voicemail set up and you couldn't leave me a message or something. So I checked all of that. It's all working now. If you could give me a call back at some point, that would be great.

This is Anna Limon. Did I say that already? It's your grandmother's care. It's really not a matter of life or death or anything, but I'd like to speak to you. Thanks again. Okay. This is Anna Limon. Again. I hope that you haven't gotten my last two messages. Or, I mean... I hope there's a good reason why you haven't gotten my last two messages. Like, maybe you're on a tour of Europe or something. Not like I hope you're dead in a ditch somewhere.

It's really weird, I'm sorry. I just mean, I've gotten to know your grandmother pretty well over the past six months, and... I'd like to think you're not the kind of person who just ignores someone for the sake of it because you could. I'd like to think you're the kind of person who does things for a reason. And if you have a reason not to want to talk to me, that is fine. I get it. Really. Family is... Family is crazy. Yeah. I get that. But...

If you could even just send me a text, maybe, to say so, I'd be really, really grateful. I'd shut up about it. I swear. Okay. Thank you. Bye. It's me again. I mean, it's Anna. Just trying to reach you. Whatever. Forget it.

Okay, so here's the thing. Your grandmother, Sally, I've spent a lot of time around her and she likes to talk. We both do, I guess. She's lucid a lot more than you'd expect, maybe. She has good days and bad days, but she's sharp. She remembers. And like I said, she likes to talk. And one of her favorite topics is you. So this is kind of strange, right? Because I actually know a lot about you.

You're like a character in a book, almost. Because everything I know about you, I know secondhand through the narrative your grandmother tells. And so me calling you, it's kind of like calling Jane Eyre or Henry Winter or Roland DeShane or something. But it's... Even stranger than that. Because I can hear your voice. I hear it every time I call you in your voicemail message. I know you're real. You're right there. Only you aren't. You're not even close. Isn't that funny?

I think it's kind of funny. Most of all, it's like I am talking into a wishing well. Just water and echoes and silence. It's lonely out here. I don't think I actually even meant to say that, but it's true so screw it. I know you've been here. Sally keeps photographs of you on her mantelpiece, and now that she's in the chair, it's my job to keep them dusted. So, I see you all the time.

You 8 or maybe 10 years old sitting out in the true swing. You've got your hair and pigtails and this funny expression on your face like... You're waiting for something important to happen just beyond the line of sight. I'm standing in the kitchen looking out the window at the true swing right now. In the picture of you, it's... I don't know, it's pretty. But it's like something from a hundred years ago. A little bit dreamy, a little bit...

romantic. Now the rope's green and frayed and the swing seat is cracked and the tree's covered in ivy. It's still pretty, but it's different. A little bit darker. Spookier, maybe. The whole house is... spooky, though. That's actually kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. Not the spookiness of the house or whatever, but... wanted to know about the letters that's all

Hi, it's... I'm sorry. I'm being... I don't know what I'm being. pushy or rude or just plain crazy I'd like my job you know I like people I like helping them I chose this no one forced me into it but it's a strange way to live in someone else's house Waiting for them to die so you can move on to another house, another dying person. Living in flux, in stasis. isn't really living. Not really. And the older people, they go to bed so early

long before the overnight carrier gets there. So there are all these hours of dark being alone in a place that doesn't belong to you. And even when the nightcare comes and you're off duty, you're never really off duty. You can't go out to a bar and drink a couple beers and bring someone home with you. You can't even play your music loud and dance around your bedroom naked. It's like being a cross between an infant and a senior citizen.

Your life isn't really something that belongs to you. I'm not complaining. No, I'm complaining, but... It's not because I'm unhappy deep down. Like I said, I like my job. And Sally's great. She's wonderful. She listens to me and she likes telling stories and she's kind. She goes out of her way to be kind. But she has secrets.

a big house. Before I came here, I don't think I'd ever set foot in a house so big. Last year, I worked for a lady who had three different floors. upstairs downstairs and a mezzanine and I thought that was the most decadent thing in the whole world until I came here You must have had the best time as a kid, running around and poking into all these rooms and cubbies and closets and attics. That was what I wanted to tell you.

So, last week, maybe Monday or Tuesday, Sally told me to go get down the box of Christmas decorations from the attic. She wanted to sort through them. See which ones she could have me bring into the Goodwill in town and which ones she might want to put up. The addicts are like... Well... You probably remember what they're like. They're huge, bigger than any house I've ever lived in, and full of these insane labyrinth twists and turns.

Someone put up walls, but only here and there. These bizarre dividing lines that turn the whole place into, like... A naked human brain all looped on itself and gray and buzzing. The boiler is what buzzes. It's like a cat purring endlessly. You can feel it vibrate if you touch the floor or touch the walls. It's like being inside something alive. Like being inside a heart. Sally said the Christmas decorations were right by the stairway door in a box marked 1986 I found the box

I dusted it off and brought it downstairs, put it on Sally's wheelchair table for her. But when she opened it up... She started screaming. Not just crying, but screaming like a fox, like something inhuman. I've seen my fair share of dementia i've seen panic attacks and heart attacks and stroke and death and nothing much that the human body can do really scares me anymore but Sally scared me. I don't think I've ever been so scared. I took the box away, just...

threw it in the other room and tried to calm her down. She stopped screaming eventually. Eventually, she let me touch her again. She looked up at me and said, I'm going into the ground for you. Then she said it again and again and again. I'm going into the ground for you. Like that. Like it meant something else. Something important. It took a long, long time for her to calm down. All day, maybe. The relief carer was sick, so...

I didn't have a break until Sally went to bed that night. And then it was just me in the box. What would you have done? I went straight for it. There's no version of the story in which I don't go straight for it. inside inside there were letters hundreds of them maybe thousands bundled into packets and tied with red and white butcher's twine. All of them had the same envelope with a navy stripe across the top.

All of them were written in the same scribbled, uneven handwriting. All of them, every single one, stamped with a red stamp that read, returned to sender not one of them opened each one addressed to Sally Martin at this house at this address All of them sealed with a single red lipstick kiss. If you could just call me back if...

You could just let me know that you hear this. I'm not asking for a conversation at this stage. Just something. Something so I know I'm not talking into a hole in the ground. I just... We're sorry. This mailbox is full and cannot take new messages. Mabel is written and produced by Becca De La Rosa. The voice of Mabel Martin is... The voice of Anna Limon is Becca De La Rosa.

The music in this episode was by RJ Sonar, LJ Cruiser, Matthew LaMontagne and Emmanuel Toledo, Chris Zabriskie, avoidant and morse and all of it is available to download on the free music archive at freemusicarchive.org For more information about Mabel, including a full track list for each episode, visit us online at MabelPodcast.com or on Twitter at Podcast Mabel.