Blood On Her Hands

Chapter 20

Particles of dust danced around the tip of my nose upon ascending the ladder to the attic. The smell of lavender and wooden floors morphed into a dry, powdery scent that slid into my throat. I coughed and brushed a cobweb off my forehead with the back of my palm. If I had to have guessed, I would have said that no one had been up there since the day all of the stuff had been loaded into it.

The ceiling was sunken into triangular patterns with wooden beams creating a canopy beneath them. The walls were painted the same dark brown the rest of the house was but with the only light coming from a small square window in the far left corner, they seemed darker. Boxes lined the perimeter of the space, some with objects and clothing spilling out of them. If I squinted, I could make out thick sharpie labeling them.

I fumbled around the wall for a light switch. I found a splintery, wooden carved switch plate and soon the single light bulb hanging from the center of the attic was shining. A moth flapped around it.

It was hard to remember the last time I had been in the attic. Maybe it was for my senior prom, when Nancy suggested I just use the dress she had worn a few years earlier but made alterations. I had pointed out how embarrassing it would be if people found out I wore the same exact dress my sister did but Nancy assured me no one was going to be paying that much attention to me.

Sure enough, the dress was sitting on the bodice of a mannequin my aunt owned when she had a side job as a tailor. She helped me alter it until it was virtually unrecognizable. It went from being floor length to stopping at my knees, giving me one full sleeve while omitting the other. She made the red number backless for me, which was something Nancy raged about.

"Why does Mickey get to look sexy for prom but I got to look like a nun?" she had said.

It was something I had wondered as well considering my aunt had pushed for us to dress modestly while growing up. Right before I left the house that night, she showed me a photo from an old album kept in the attic. It belonged to my uncle and had once belonged to his mother. In the album was a picture of my mother and Tìo along with some unfamiliar people strung between them. They were bathed in an orange glow from the camera's attempt to capture the teenagers standing under lamp lights in the dark of night. Behind them were tables and chairs, a DJ set up, and dancing bodies. That's when I saw it. My mother was wearing a red dress much like mine with her hair teased in a 90's sort of fashion.

I nearly cried off all my prom makeup when Tìa showed me the picture. I wanted to thank her for giving a piece of my mother back to me but I hadn't known how.

I searched through the boxes for more of the photo albums I knew my uncle kept. They were buried deep under the clutter of Nancy and I's kindergarten crafts and Julio's old sports equipment. After working up a sweat that made my armpits itchy and hair greasy, I found what I wanted.

The first two pages of photos seemed to be taken on the same day. My mother and uncle had to be in their tween years, their faces still chubby with youth but their limbs lanky and awkward. My mother wore overalls over a bright pink shirt. Her big brother stood over her on top of a water fountain, his arms around her shoulders as they posed for a picture. Her hair was as dark as mine but her skin was more tan from the island sun.

The next album I went through was Nancy and me. I imagined that my mother had put together the album herself. It was her fingers that slipped the photos behind the plastic and wrote the dates below them. She taped the first locks of our hair from our first haircuts and wrote about the things we accomplished as toddlers like going potty on our own or getting dressed without help. Every few pages, I would be gifted with a picture of us with her in it. Her giant smile as she held me in her lap or her giant hoop earrings catching the camera's flash as she bathed Nancy.