Enough was enough. Lynette could put off sorting through her baggage no longer. She opened the hatch and stuck her head in, instantly overwhelmed by the task ahead of her.
The attic was bigger than she remembered. Fuller and darker, too. Lynette had to run downstairs for a lamp and come back up again.
There. That was better. At least she could see to make a start.
First, there was a box of old Christmas tat. The tree lights were tangled and bulbs were blown. The tinsel had all but fallen apart, and the candy canes were several years out of date. Unfortunate, but she supposed it made things easier.
Lynette threw the box through the hatch, creating a pile for the dump, and lifted the next in line: a plastic container full of old phone books. Well, those could go as well. Maybe the whole job would be this easy, and she’d been worrying about nothing.
One by one, Lynette opened the rest of the boxes and tossed them aside. She was ready to call it a day, dust her hands off and climb back through the hatch when her eye caught one final box shoved away in the darkest corner. It took some doing––crawling on her hands and knees to get over to it, and using all her strength to pull it out of the too-tight nook it was in––but, finally, Lynette dislodged the box and brought it closer to the light.
She flipped open the lid and began to cough at all the dust flying about. Then, when she had her breath back and the dust cloud had cleared, Lynette gasped.
This. This was exactly the kind of thing she’d wanted to avoid.
Inside the box, thousands of eyes from thousands of loose, faded photos stared out at her: her mother’s eyes from her first communion; her mother’s eyes on her mother’s wedding day, and Lynette’s wedding day; and her mother’s eyes as they sat on the beach, Lynette playing in the sand.
The eyes cold. Sad. In each and every single one.
Lynette was tempted to tip the photos out with all the rest, but she couldn’t. Of course she couldn’t. She’d come this far, so she might as well finish.
Dragging the box out of the attic, Lynette turned off the lamp and closed the hatch. With some effort, she carried all of the stuff for the dump down to the garage, where she could bribe some of the neighbourhood kids to take it the rest of the way.
Finally, Lynette took the box of photographs into the living room with her. She poured herself a glass of wine and sat down to work. First, she had to sort the snapshots by the dates on the back. Then she could painstakingly stick them into photo albums. It would take weeks, she feared, and probably more than a dozen albums. She’d resent her mum for that, annoyed that there had been so many photos taken when she clearly didn’t want to be in any of them, except Lynette knew it was her dad’s doing, and Lynette could absolutely never resent her father.
Several hours and half a bottle of wine later, Lynette at least had the photos in chronological order. She picked up the last in the stack––the most recent––a candid shot of Lynette and her mother at some birthday or other. Because it wasn’t posed like all the rest, it had a nice quality that Lynette found she actually liked. She thought about framing it, wondering where she would hang it when the phone ringing startled her.
Slowly, Lynette got up and padded over to the phone. The wine had unsteadied her a little, but one look at the clock did a lot to sober her up.
Four A.M.
No good news ever came at four in the morning.
Lynette swallowed and lifted the receiver to her ear. The person on the other end started talking without her having to say hello. They were polite and direct and succinct.
Lynette wanted to scream at them. She wanted to scream at herself, and her mother. Instead, she nodded along and set the phone down when the person on the other side had finished. Had they said they were a nurse? Or a doctor? Lynette didn’t remember. Already, most of the conversation had become a fog in her mind, with only the two key words sticking out, clear as day:
She’s gone.
Lynette sank to her knees, sending the photographs scattering; all of her hard work for nothing.
At the end of the day, she wasn’t the least bit prepared.
Ellie Rose McKee is a writer from Northern Ireland. She has had poems published by Arlen House, Nine Muses Poetry, and Black Bough; has had short stories included in Women Aloud NI’s ‘North Star’ anthology, The Bramley, and Scarlet Leaf Review; and has been blogging for over ten years. You can find the author on Twitter at @EllieRose101 and www.ellierosemckee.com.
Photo by Anshu A on Unsplash.
