Judges

Chapter Twenty Three

1994

"Honey, are you okay? I heard you scream?" Mother is knocking on the door, and I sit up and try to keep from sobbing. I remembered it, I tried not to think about it but I did. After all this time spent completely blocking it out...

"Yeah, mom, I'm fine. Just a nightmare."

"Sounded like more than a nightmare. Must have been a hell of a nightmare."

"Mom!"

"Sorry, baby," she laughs. "Bad habits. Please don't listen to me."

"It's okay, I was just kidding."

"Well, as long as you're up, I found something amazing in our attic. A photo album." She laughs. "I was looking for our old Christmas tree, the fake one, and it fell off a shelf like it was waiting to be read. It's very unusual."

We go downstairs and walk into the living room, and a photo album is lying on the coffee table open to the first page.

"I'll get you some tea, your voice sounds hoarse."

I sit down and turn the pages of the book quietly looking through old sepias of straight-faced men and children. Mother brings in my tea, and sits down next to me.

"Oh, I think these are all your father's relatives, from the 1890's. I think my mother crammed a few in the back, of my side of the family..."

We turn a few more pages, and she finally stops on a page of newer photos. I immediately recognize one, and I want to scream.

"See this one? That is my grandmother, Margaret Moore. Your great grandmother, and her sister, my great aunt Augusta. Your namesake."

She points to the picture that I am staring at, one of two girls, around fourteen and twelve, with a tall, unhappy girl standing behind the younger one. The picture has water damage in the upper right corner, but it stops before the faces of the girls. They are beautiful.

"We named you after her, because you look exactly like her. See? The taller one. She looks very upset, in this one, but in other ones you can see her smile.

"H-how old is this picture?"

"Let me see." She examines a crumpled piece of paper taped to the page. "It says the top left, second page is of Augusta and Margaret Moore, from around 1907. I think Augusta died, in 1908, in a car accident. Poor thing was going across a road and got hit, that's why your father and I get so upset when you don't look both ways. Of course, things were much more dangerous back then..."

She continues talking, but I ignore her voice and keep looking at the small photos. I see one of Margaret's dogs Peter, a cocker spaniel, and one of Jacobs Gardens, nearby the house.

I have to stop looking.

I don't however, and I suddenly see a family photo.

My mother, Victoria, next to my father, Howard, and my sister Margaret, in front of them. And next to my younger sister Margaret, stands me, in my own body, at twelve years old. Me, my own family. My original family, not my sister's great granddaughter's family.

My name is Augusta Moore, not Augusta Hayes.