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The woman met Sam’s gaze. Her smile was kind yet a bit wary. Sam guessed that few people showed up unannounced in this neighborhood unless they were selling something. Before Sam could speak, a small dog roared around the side of the house and into the front yard barking uproariously. Both Sam and Kate took a step back as the dog stood in front of them barking and growling.

“Foxy!” the woman shouted above the din. “Foxy!” She managed to scoop the dog into her arms as she said to Sam, “I’m so sorry. She’s just a little overprotective.”

“No worries, Ma’am. I’m sorry to bother you,” Sam hesitated.

The woman looked at her expectantly. Sam swallowed and continued.

“I’m wondering if you might be able to help me. I’m looking for a woman who lived here in the 1950s and early 1960s. Ruth Goldman?” Sam held out the picture to the woman.

“Well, that is this house alright, but I don’t know anyone by that name. We, my husband and I, moved here… Gosh… It must be twenty-four or twenty-five years ago now. Summer of 1988.” She handed the picture back to Sam.

Sam signed dejectedly. She didn’t think she’d knock on the door and come face to face with Ruth Goldman, but up until that moment she’d been at least a little hopeful.

“Thank you for your time, Ma’am,” Sam said as she turned back toward the Xterra.

“You said her name was Ruth Goldman?”

Sam stopped in her tracks.

“Yes, Ma’am”

“Ruth Goldman. R.G. Well, that explains that. She motioned to the gate and said, “I think there’s something you need to see.”

Sam unlatched the gate and stopped. The woman saw her glance at Kate.

“Oh, let her in. Foxy won’t do much damage,” the woman laughed. Kate ran through the fence and after a few preliminary barks, she and Foxy ran off together toward the backyard.

The woman led Sam to the front stoop, the same stoop that Sam could see in the picture she held in her hand. She stopped with one foot on the first step and turned toward Sam.

“Why are you looking for her?”

Sam knew it was a valid question. It wasn’t every day that a stranger showed up at your door looking for a ghost from decades past.

“Ruth was a childhood friend of my mom’s. That’s them in the picture. They lost track of each other not long after this picture was taken. They’re in their sixties now. My mom recently decided she’d like to know what happened to her old friend. So here I am,” Sam smiled as she spoke. Even though it was a big pain in the ass, it was kind of a cool story, as Sam thought about it.

“Well, that is sweet of you, Dear”.

“Oh, I’m Sam, by the way,” Sam said extending her hand.

The woman pulled off her gardening gloves and shook Sam’s hand firmly in return.

“Evelyn Campbell.”

“Let’s see,” Evelyn said, apparently pondering something. “Ok, back here. She led Sam around the side of the house toward a set of two steps that led to what looked to be a back door.

“We’ve been finding these all over the place for years,” she explained. “This was the first one we found when we moved in.” Evelyn motioned for Sam to lean down.

“It’s been painted over numerous times. That’s the original wood they used when they built this back stoop. But you can still see it”.

Sam leaned in for a closer look. She could see some letters carved into the wood. It was faint, but Evelyn was right. Sam could still see it. ‘RG’ and then slightly below it ‘JT’.

Sam gasped and stepped back. “Oh, my God…”

“There’s more,” Evelyn said as she motioned for Sam to follow.

“So the R.G. stands for Ruth Goldman," Evelyn said. "I tell you, we’ve wondered about that for years. We figured a young person lived here before and left his mark. I guess ‘her mark’ would be more appropriate. The J.T.?”.

“Jean Taylor. My mother.”

Sam followed Evelyn silently toward the garage.

“My husband thought I was crazy for keeping this, but I just couldn’t bring myself to throw it out. So many memories for a family I never knew. Jim isn’t as sentimental as I am,” Evelyn explained as she dug around behind a work bench.

“Ah, ha! Here it is.”

Evelyn pulled out what looked to be an old pantry door. On the back side, there was a growth chart. One side said ‘R’ and the other ‘J’. Between each set of hash marks, an age was written. The first one said ‘Age 5’, the last ‘Age 13’. Give or take a quarter of an inch, the marks were even. Unless Ruth had a twin, Sam assumed that the ‘J’ was her mother. Jean and Ruth had been friends when they were five.

“Holy shit.” Sam said and immediately apologized for her choice of language.

“It’s ok, Dear. I’ve heard it before. But you may want to save some of that. Come on. Follow me.”

As they walked Evelyn continued talking. “Like I said, we found these RG/JT’s all over the place. My husband found one in the attic. Then we found one up in a tree in the backyard when we built my son’s tree house. This one, though…” Evelyn’s voice trailed off.

They had arrived at what had probably been her son’s bedroom. It was still decorated for his teenage years complete with surfing posters and football trophies.

“I kept it this way just to bother him, but now my grandson just loves it. I guess I missed my chance to turn it into a sewing room,” Evelyn said as she opened the closet door.

“I tell you what. These old houses have terrible closet space. I guess nobody had much of anything back in the day,” Evelyn laughed as she continued, “This is the only thing I changed when Jake moved out. I reclaimed the closet.”

Sam gave Evelyn a hand as she started pulling out cardboard boxes.

“It’s back here,” she said. “Jake liked to hide out in here and read late at night after his bedtime. He found this one. This one’s different, Sam. Different. I loved finding all these RG/JTs over the years because I love a good story. It was like a link to the past. Jake and I used to talk about who may have carved them and why. We wondered who the ‘R’ was and the ‘J’ was. He was a creative kid. He used to make up all kinds of things.”

Evelyn finally stopped talking and pulled the string to turn on the light. She crawled into the closet and indicated that Sam should follow.

“Look. It’s right down there. Can you see it?”

Sam nearly fell over backwards. In the back of the closet, etched into a old piece of cedar plank, was the same lettering, R.G. + J.T. This time, though, Ruth had added a heart around the letters.

“Fuck me…” Sam exhaled without even thinking. “Fuck me…”