Day 2
Early the next morning, when Adelmo woke up, he made up his mind to do something he'd promised himself a thousand times he would never do. The time had come to break that promise. He knew what had to be done.
He threw the covers back and climbed out of the bed, forcing himself to move. Grabbing his clothes, he got ready for the day and, before he could change his mind, he stood at the base of the flight of stairs that led to the attic. In the attic was a large trunk which contained all that was left of his parents‟ possessions. The loss of his mother and father had scarred him deeply, and though he knew he would never throw out their things, he also never wanted to look through them, as if doing so might somehow alter their memory.
Adelmo had been young when they died, and he desperately wanted to avoid forgetting them. Of course, he would never forget them completely, but a therapist he'd been sent to after the tragedy had put him into a survivor's group for teens and adolescents, and one of the sessions had made a particularly large impact on him.
Another boy, slightly younger than he had, told the group tearfully that he‟d started to forget what his mother‟s voice sounded like. She had sung him to sleep every night as a child, and he‟d been having trouble imagining the sound of her voice. Adelmo didn't want his mother and father to become distant memories.
Adelmo had heard things about his family, strange things his parents hinted they had kept from him for his own protection, and he was afraid something in the trunk might reveal knowledge better left undiscovered. He wanted his memories intact.
But the incident at his store the day before left him thinking that perhaps it was time to face those fears.
After all, his parents were still his parents, right? No matter if the stories were true or not, no one could ever take that away, right?
He took a deep breath and began to ascend the stairs to the attic, which groaned in protest under his weight, making him think twice about the wisdom of his actions. He paused and gathered his strength as he reached for the door knob. He steeled himself for whatever lay beyond the door, as if what was behind it had some power that threatened him. He turned the knob and pushed on the heavy door.
It was dark and dusty, the light from downstairs barely piercing the gloom of the space. Once he stepped into the room, he could barely see a foot in front of him. He pulled the chain that hung from the rafters to illuminate the room. With a sudden flash of light, the room was once again plunged into darkness. The bulb had burned out. The sudden flash caused his heart to race.
Adelmo pushed a button on his watch for illumination. Six fifty-seven. He had plenty of time to look through the trunk before work. He pointed his watch into the darkness as he began to become used to the feeling of unease.
He moved cautiously in the dimness and his foot caught the leg of a piece of furniture. He heard something sway, and he grabbed at it instinctively. It was a small lamp. He twisted the key on the upper part, and it bathed the attic in the dim glow of what looked to be a decades-old twenty-five watt bulb, eerily similar to the glow of the night-light by which his grandfather used to tell him all those stories.
Stories about his family.
Adelmo stared at the musty trunk. It was about four feet long and two feet wide, with a depth of near thirty inches.
A yellowed label neatly lettered with the names of his father and mother was still tacked to the ancient wood, which had apparently been fastened over an older label, presumably that of his paternal grandparents. There looked to be other labels under those.
Adelmo took a deep breath, and lifted the lid.
The trunk was empty.
Adelmo went downstairs to make the call.
**********
“Alexandru! Nicoleta Alexandru!”
“Just a moment, sir.”
Adelmo waited as the operator checked whatever it is. They check when you don‟t know the overseas number. It had been awhile since he‟d spoken to his grandfather and, for some reason, the number had changed. He hoped he was okay. Maybe he had moved. It was odd though. It wasn't like his grandfather to move without letting him know.
As he waited to be connected, Adelmo's mind drifted back to his grandfather and those pictures. Sometimes, while telling him stories, his grandfather would show Adelmo pictures he claimed were from photo albums kept in his parents‟ trunk.
Pictures of odd things and odd-looking people.
Adelmo didn't mind that his grandfather showed him things that had belonged to his parents, but once he was of age and his grandfather went back to the old country, Adelmo put the trunk in the attic for good and left it there.
The trunk had apparently been in his family for many years and had been passed down through the generations, finally becoming the property of his mother. After his parents were killed and their home destroyed, the only thing left was the trunk, which had survived only because it was temporarily in his grandfather's possession at the time.
It had never been fully explained to Adelmo why the trunk was where it was, but he never gave it too much thought until he got older, and by then the circumstances surrounding the events of the tragedy, what little he'd been told, had, ironically, become even more painful.
It was as if the loss became magnified over time instead of fading, like looking at the past through a telescope where everything was just a little too close to his heart.
Adelmo had never pressed his grandfather for more information because, to him, what mattered was that they were gone. Knowing more about the circumstances would never make that go away. When Adelmo had turned eighteen, his grandfather had put the trunk in the attic himself before he turned over the house to Adelmo and went back to Romania.
Until now, Adelmo had never opened it.
There had been journals, too.
Books passed from generation to generation in his family
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