Photographic Memories [EDITING]

The Boy From The Picture

It was another Friday evening. Most fellows would be hanging around outside, either in the malls or at a lively nightclub. My aunt and I weren't like that, but we did go out occasionally on Friday nights. It was well past seven o'clock and I had done all my homework, eaten my dinner and done all of my chores. I was about to ensconce myself in a classic Charles Dickens novel when my aunt called me.

  "Grace! Get down here!" she hollered. I placed the book on my bedside table and climbed down the dwindling staircase. I met my aunt in the living room. She was sitting by the fireplace, sipping hot coffee, before she glanced to my direction.
  "I heard that you called me," I said.
  "Yes, I did. I'm sorry I didn't tell you but you have one extra chore to do," she said.
  "What is it?" I asked.
  "You have to clean the attic. The last time I checked it it was pretty dusty and slightly disorganized, so I want you to fix it up," she informed me.
  "Okay, auntie," I said with courteousness.

  I skipped back to the attic and began to work. She knew that I was allergic to dust, but even then she sent me there. Not only that, but she coerced me into moving my belongings there. I could still remember the day I turned five, and my aunt turned the dusty old attic into my personal bedroom. I could remember myself crying, begging, pleading, screaming, all of which became fruitless. I felt grateful, though, because I could've ended up in the dark basement. It was much cleaner and roomier, but it was freezing cold and blindingly dark. The only way we could see in the basement was if we use a flashlight, for the lamps in the basement's ceiling were broken.

  I placed a mask over my nose and mouth and began to clean the attic. I placed all the empty cardboard boxes in one corner and arranged all the old junk in another. We had so many antiques that if we held a garage sale, I thought, we would've generated a thousand dollars. My aunt wouldn't want to do that, no, she was a rather lazy woman. Even if she could make money out of something, if it would take hard work, it would be most probable that she would try to find something else. She was just lucky to be hired by a kind boss, because she was rather slack for an employee. She might as well end up jobless and live off her inheritance.

  I had categorized all the antiques. All I needed to do was place them in the boxes. By the time I was done with that, I wrote on the boxes using dark blue markers to show which box contained what objects. The big ones had old chairs and tables in them, the small ones held decorations, the smaller ones contained porcelain goods, and the smallest box kept a wooden chest of fake jewelry. I almost thought that they were made of real gold, until I saw the label and realized that it was made of cheap metals. My aunt was the stingiest woman in my family, so it wasn't a big surprise when she got a smaller share than her two brothers.

  I brought up the vacuum cleaner and cleaned the attic of its ruthless dust. Once that had been finished, I placed it next to the towers of cardboard boxes. I stepped on a wooden plank and noticed that it creaked. It felt hollow underneath. I crouched and fingered the edge of the plank. When it came off like a puzzle piece, I realized that I had found my mother's jewelry box. I saw that a few other planks were loose as well, so I uncovered them. Next thing I knew, I had uncovered all that my family has left after our house burned down in a scorching fire. I retrieved two more cardboard boxes to store all my findings.

  In the first box, I placed the things my parents owned. These included my father's crucifix, my mother's earrings, my father's fountain pen and my mother's mirror, among other things. For the second box, I placed my family's framed photographs. There were pictures from my parents' wedding, pictures of us having picnics, and sweet family pictures that made me long for the days when they were still alive. There was one particular picture that attracted the most of my attention, and that picture was of a boy and a girl. I didn't remember seeing the boy at all, but I knew the girl.

  I was the girl in the picture.

  I extracted the piece of printed paper and checked the back of the photograph to see if there was anything written on it. I carefully read what was written.

"Gale Summers with his two-year-old sister, Grace."

  I had a brother? All this time there was someone else in my family beside me and my parents? Even if he did exist, he probably died when the house was burning. If not, how come I didn't recall him? I kept the picture, along with the rest of my family's possessions, and headed down to the living room.

  My aunt was still sitting by the fireplace, still sipping her hot coffee. I sat down next to her on a rocking chair. She took a glimpse of me and then ignored me, wandering into her fantasies as the brown and bitter beverage got slurped.

  "Aunt Maddy," I called for her attention, "can I ask you something?"
  "What is it?"
  "Do I have an elder brother?" I asked. She shot me one of her wrinkly grimaces.
  "What makes you think of such a bizarre thing?" she questioned me.
  "When I was cleaning the attic, I stumbled upon a picture. The writing on the back of it said that I was the girl in the picture, and that the boy was my elder brother," I replied.
  "For one thing I know is that I've never seen him. Even if I did, I would have taken care of him after that dreadful house fire. The fact that he's not here with us means that he either doesn't exist or died with your parents," she said.

  I trotted upstairs to the attic and curled up in my bed. Maybe Gale Summers didn't exist. Maybe he did. It was up to me to find out.