Chapter Three

When I finally got back to the house, ignoring an irritated glare from my mom, I could feel my bitterness starting to slip away. As much as I wanted to, I knew I was not going to be able to despise my new home forever. Day by day it would grow on me until I felt at home in the quiet little town. Day by day. I laughed. It was already beginning to feel more normal.

Sitting down at the kitchen table, I took the strawberries out of the grocery bag and began slicing them. Their sweet smell filled the kitchen. I could not help popping one into my mouth. Sugary bliss swam over my taste buds. It was possibly the best strawberry I had ever tasted. My mom had always complained about store bought produce. She missed the homegrown fruits and vegetables she had grown up on. I used to think she was just complaining because she didn’t like the city. Now I had to admit she was right.

I sat listening to my mom hum as she turned pancake after pancake. I smiled as the pancake stack grew higher and higher. The fluffy tower made me think of my brother David. He was only one person, but the family’s food consumption had dropped significantly when he moved into his own apartment just before we left Manhattan. My mom still had not gotten used to the change. She even had to put back the extra plate when she began setting the table and serving the food. Thoughts of David not being here dulled whatever small bit of contentment I had found earlier.

Despite the allure of the special meal, I just stared at the strawberry covered pancakes, absently mashing them with my fork. My mom kept glancing over at me with an anxious look, but my funk had settled in again. Strawberries and pancakes were my favorite breakfast food, but I hardly touched the meal. Knowing my mom had made the meal especially to cheer me up, plus the staring, eventually won out. I took a bite with a faint smile.

“Well, I know that you wanted to work on your own room again today, but I could really use your help sorting photos. Those movers did an awful job of packing. The album pages have all fallen out and the photos are just in piles at the bottom of the boxes. It will take me forever by myself,” my mom said with a smile after seeing me spoon the food into my mouth.

“Yeah, sure, Mom, I can help,” I said. My enthusiasm was miles short of genuine, but my mom ignored it. I knew that my mom could sort the photos much more quickly by herself, but she probably just didn’t want me spending another sulky day alone in my room. I had been “arranging” it since we got here. And so far nothing had actually moved. My mom’s obvious plan to speed my progression towards well-adjusted and happy annoyed me considerably, but the sigh of relief and pleased smile mellowed my irritation.

Taking another forced bite before pushing the plate away, I said, “I’ll go get started,” and left the table. I saw my mom’s smile twitched a little as I got up, but I kept moving. She sighed disappointedly as I left the kitchen.

***

The two of us quietly, but slowly, organized the dismantled photo albums. Every so often my mom would pick up a photo of one of us kids, usually me, and tell the story about the day it was taken. I smiled at each of the stories, but wished she would just let me work in silence. Or better yet, let me go back to my room.

Pulling another box over to me I wished it were the last one. When I opened the box that had once contained carefully scrapbooked pages of me and David on summer vacations, an overwhelming loneliness settled over me. Me and David were very close, or had been before my parents left him behind to prepare for college. I still had not quite forgiven him for abandoning me, but at the same time I was excited for him to be on his own.

To my fifteen year old mind, college was a dreamlike escape, a wonderful life silently waiting for me. It was only a painful three years away. When David called earlier in the week, I begged him for every detail of what adult life was like. Going to work, living on his own, going out on the weekends. I was so jealous. I longed for college life. David, of course, had teased me to no end about being stuck in Grainer, but his excitement quickly bubbled to the surface as he poured out practically every hour of his week to me. He was so lucky.

I looked back down at the picture I was holding and was pulled out of my college dreams by a tiny face looking back at me from the photo in my hand. The photo was black and white, slightly yellowed, but the features were still in perfect detail. Raven black hair, beautiful tinted skin, and glittering silvery eyes, just like my eyes, stared up at me.

The girl was about seven years old. She was cute and perky, just like every picture I had ever seen of myself, but I wrinkled my face in confusion when I realized that the little girl was riding a horse. I was absolutely sure this was me. The face was identical to the one my mom had already hung on the wall, but I was terrified of horses. I had never ridden one in my life, and if I had, I certainly would not have been smiling about it.

“Mom, when was this picture taken? I’ve never ridden a horse. I can’t stand them. But isn’t this me?” I asked. I felt silly asking whether or not I was holding a picture of myself, but I was too confused to care.

My mom took the picture. She turned it over. In delicate handwriting was printed, Katie Malo, age 7.

“Who is Katie?” I asked.

“Why this is your Aunt Katie, your dad’s sister. You two do look amazingly similar. The same silvery eyes even. You remember…, no I guess you wouldn’t. She died before you were born and your father never mentions her. I actually never even met her either. I only know who she was from doing genealogy. I asked your father about her once,” my mom said sadly.

“How did she die?” I asked. I was astounded that I had never even heard of this beloved aunt. How could my dad not talk about having a sister? How did that never once come up?

“It’s very sad. Your father doesn’t talk about her much. He blames himself for her death,” she said. She shuffled through some pictures as if trying to decide what to say.

My mom sighed and continued. “When your father was nineteen, he came back home for the summer after his first year in college to see Katie. She was turning sixteen. Katie loved riding horses, so for her sixteenth birthday she and Robert went out riding. Katie’s horse got spooked and it threw her. The fall broke her neck. I’m sure you can understand why your father doesn’t like to talk about it.”

Neither of us said anything for a while. I just stared at what looked like a ghost now. The aunt I had never known stared back at me from decades past, giving me a glimpse of her life, but leaving me wondering about her death. Only sixteen, I thought as I wondered what plans Katie must have had for her life. What did Katie want to be when she grew up? Did she have a crush on some boy from school?

I had so many plans for my future already, especially college in New York, and I deeply regretted the fact that I never got the chance to kiss Ezra Lathrup before leaving. It startled me to think that all my planning and dreaming could come to nothing just like it did for Katie. What would that feel like? I shuddered and hoped I never knew.

I looked back at the photo and suddenly wanted to know everything about my dead aunt. I didn’t know why, but I wanted to hear her story. The picture seemed important. It was my only link to her besides our similar appearances. We could have been twins. It seemed so odd to me that I should even have an aunt, and I did not want to forget her like everyone else apparently had.

“Mom, can I keep this picture?” I asked without really knowing why I wanted it.

“Sure. I doubt your father will miss it. He hasn’t looked at these photos in years,” she said.

Soon my mom was back to her normal jovial self, sorting through the hundreds of pictures still scattered around the room. I kept sorting along with my mother, but I wasn’t really looking at the pictures anymore. I could only think about Katie, dead at sixteen. A shiver ran through me, and I suddenly felt the desire to keep digging. I felt as if I had been touched by something from the past, something that did not want to stay in the past.