Finding Claire

Confrontation

Penny stared at the picture dumbfounded, trying to process what she saw. She was confident that she had seen this woman before, so did that mean she was still around when she was little if this was her sister? She had so many questions that it was all starting to hurt her brain.

She placed the picture down and began to look through the dozens of other pictures in the box. Most of them were taken when Andrea was a young child and included images of her horseback riding, participating in dance recitals, and engaging in various other activities, with either one or both of her parents included. There were a few of her Grandma Rosemary holding her. Soon, she stumbled across a newborn photo, looked at the back, and saw writing in her mother's handwriting.

Andrea Lee Puckett

July 1st, 1987, 1:30 am

7lbs, 9ozs

She felt a knot in her stomach, feeling jealous that her parents had baby pictures of Andrea while she had none. The youngest picture she came across was when she was only 3. Her parents claimed that her baby pictures were destroyed in a fire, but it was obvious that they had taken great care to preserve Andrea's.

Penny needed to confront her parents about why they pretended that Andrea never existed. She understood that everyone grieves differently, but it seemed disturbing that they would act as if Andrea had never been part of their lives.

Quickly, she got up and put all but the first picture she found back in the box. While she knew Kim would be unavailable, Asia would hopefully be free to talk as she was only babysitting at her house today. She desperately needed someone to talk to before confronting her parents about this.

Penny sat on her bed, crossed legs as she finished explaining everything that had happened during the day to Asia over the phone.

"Damn, and they told you all this time that they never wanted kids, and you were a surprise child."

She just nodded. "Yeah, Andrea was born two years after their wedding, so I don't know what to make of that. The picture I found looks like a High School one, but she looks pretty young; I don't think I was born yet."

The more Penny stared at that photo, the more she saw a lot of her mom in Andrea. People always joked about her being adopted because there wasn't any resemblance between her parents, but her dad reassured her, saying that Penny took after her grandma.

"No offense, but something is seriously messed up there with your parents. You just told me they have all those pictures of her as a baby, but all of yours were destroyed in a fire. That is sus all the way, and let's not even start with deflecting the last name thing."

She couldn't help but cringe; Asia was making it sound like her parents were some sort of criminals.

"I know it looks bad, but there must be some explanation."

"What kind of reasonable explanation can make having one child's baby pictures still around after a fire but not the others."

Penny just stayed quiet, trying to think of some reasonable explanation, but couldn't come up with one.

"I do not know, but when they get home, I'm going just to be upfront and ask them about it. I know I had to have met her before she was in that dream I mentioned."

She heard Asia screaming at one of her sisters through the receiver. Thankfully, it was on speaker because it would have hurt her ears if it wasn't.

"Sorry about that, freaking Aaliyah again with her smart mouth. I swear I wasn't that much of a smart ass at 12 years old."

Penny chuckled. "Oh, I don't know about that; I can name a few times when we were that age."

"Anyway, explain to me that dream again because for Andrea to show up in a dream about some kid seems so random."