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Tucking my phone into a large sweater pocket, I drop my purse on the floor and wander to the window.
Emerald City winks back at me, unaware that its fate has changed hands in a violent way.
The city’s people might be better off. In the end, I had to admit to myself that my father was solely motivated by ambition and had no intention of improving a thing for anyone who couldn’t be of use to him in some way.
Uncle Josh tiptoes behind me and sets the empty box on top of the broad desk. “Where do you want to start?”
Turning around, I’m struck by the thought that my uncle has definitely seen better days. His brown eyes are bloodshot and sunken. He wears his police uniform, though judging by the wrinkles he might have slept in it.
I’m not the only one who’s suffering right now.
Josh has not only lost the big brother he’s idolized forever but he was the one ultimately responsible for taking him down.
Even though we’ve lost so much, our link is unbroken.
We’re still here and we’re still family.
I’m sure he’s surprised when I reach out for a hug. “Love you, Uncle Josh.”
“Love you too, Tessie Belle.” He rasps out the words but he gently hugs me back.
Despite the raw feeling in my throat, I won’t cry. I’ve shed more than my fair share of tears lately.
Let this be a day of closure, when all of us begin to heal and move forward.
Uncle Josh agrees to look through the desk while I search the shelves and bookcases for anything personal that would be worth keeping. My father wasn’t one to accumulate knickknacks and memorabilia. The lone succulent cactus can be left to the next resident. Same with the thick clothbound volumes on Em City laws and history that line the shelves for aesthetic purposes and have almost certainly never been cracked open.
Uncle Josh is collecting the gallery of framed photos lined up on the windowsill.
“What are you looking at?” I ask because the expression on his face is sad.
He sighs and turns the photo around to show me. “The day I graduated from the police academy.”
The Ballerini brothers are posed proudly side by side on a grassy field as people mill around behind them.
“Make sure you take that,” I tell him.
With a nod, he sets it in the box.
“Ah, one of my favorites.” Uncle Josh holds the silver framed portrait of me in my cap and gown on the day I graduated from West Emerald Prep. Not a bad photo, but certainly not a recent one.
A cold finger crawls along my spine as I flash back to the exact moment it was taken. My brand new stepmother was playing photographer and kept ordering me to smile in different poses while my cheeks ached. I counted down the minutes until I could escape and go hang out with Dani. My father, I recall, wasn’t paying attention, even during the ceremony. He was busy networking with the wealthy parents of my classmates.
I don’t think of it as a happy day.
But Uncle Josh doesn’t have the same feelings. He gazes at my teenage smiling face with fondness before adding the frame to the box.
My eyes are drawn to another object on the windowsill and I cross the room for a closer look.
Uncle Josh watches me pick up my parents’ wedding photo. They were young here, both just a little older than I am right now. The wedding was held at the old country club in West Emerald, long before it was damaged by fire and replaced with the glitzy new version.
My father towers over his petite bride. She beams at me from the past, with no idea that she would someday have a daughter that she wouldn’t live long enough to raise.
Pictures have a way of reminding us that we’re all made from threads of history, some of them frayed and irreparable. But they exist nonetheless.
“I’ll bring this one home.” I place the frame in the box.
The sight of my father’s face will never be a welcome one. Yet this photo doesn’t just belong to me. My child will also have a history to reckon with.
