THE PHOTO TRAVELER (THE PHOTO TRAVELER SERIES - BOOK 1)

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER FOUR

I’m about to give it one last try when I spot a fuzzy tall figure approaching the door. The outline gets sharper as the figure nears the glass pane. A chain lock rattles as the door slides open three inches and a man peers through the crack. He’s taller than I am, with silvery hair, but that’s about all I can see.

            I’m having trouble breathing again and my palms are beginning to swell and sweat. “Uh... Ed Greene?”

            He looks at me questioningly with his tight, yellow eyes. Before he has time to answer, someone does it for him.

            “Bud? Who is it?” An old woman’s voice. A second shadow appears in the frosted glass. A small face peers out from under his arm. A tiny old woman pops up beside him, her arm linking around his.

            “Bud?” I wonder. That name sounds so familiar somehow, like an old memory, but my heart’s racing again, I lose the thread. I look the old woman in the eye and she sends my daunting stare right back at me. For a moment we just look at one another without saying anything. I don’t think we have to.

            “Gavin?” Her voice is a whisper. There’s surprise and joy in her question. And... fear.

            When she says my name, my throat tightens so much that the only sound I can make is a half-whimper.

            Have I really found my dad’s parents after all? My only relatives?

            The woman blinks repeatedly, shaking her head. She looks up at the man. Her look is ambiguous. I can’t decide whether she’s surprised, scared, or what. He says to me, “Just a minute,” and gently moves her back a step from the door. Then he eases it closed. The flashing thought “It isn’t them!” stops my heart.

            But the next moment I hear the chain rattle again, then the small thud as it hits the door jamb. And then the door opens wide and the two of them are standing there smiling at me.

            He has broad shoulders and a great build for his age. She’s half his size but also in great shape. He wraps his long arm around her and a raw smile breaks over his thin, cracked lips. He beckons to me. “Come inside.”

            My legs are shaking. I secure my camera bag over my shoulder, scoop up my duffle bag, and fumble past them into a baby-blue hallway. There have to be more than thirty photos hanging on the wall. Mostly shots of them in places they’ve apparently visited, which is apparently everywhere in the world.

            I freeze in front of one photo that’s centered among the others as if it’s been given the place of honor. My parents. My mom’s wearing a narrow band of fabric with tiny intertwined tulips resting on top of her flowing brown hair, and my dad’s wearing a light-gray linen suit. They look so happy. So peaceful. Jet tore up the only picture I had of them during one of his drunken attacks. I haven’t seen a photo of them in forever. But I remember their faces perfectly.

            The photo fills me with emotions I thought I might have resolved long ago. But I guess not. I thought that, since I’d been so young when they died, I’d dealt with losing them, that I’d moved past it, but I feel nauseated. Drained. I assume that Ed and Estelle notice this because Estelle murmurs, “This way,” and gently guides me past the photos into the dining room.

            I collapse in the chair across them at the antique white dining table in silence and start picking at my fingernails like I always do when I’m anxious. I glimpse the other rooms and take in the array of rainbow wall colors—green kitchen, purple living room, orange half-bathroom. Not exactly what I would have gone with. But it’s so different that it actually calms me down a bit.