Her Lost Alibi by David F. Berens

Author:David F. Berens [Berens, David F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-05-10T22:00:00+00:00

15

Eye Witness

Climbing the rickety ladder into the cool, dark attic, she realized what she was looking for was connection. A connection to her mother … and her father. A musty smell enveloped her as she patted the nearest beam, feeling around for the chain on the single naked bulb. She found it and clicked it on. Harsh, yellow light blazed into the tiny cavern of antiques and keepsakes. Cardboard boxes, plastic tubs, garbage bags, and a few random buckets were lined up along the side wall nearest the back of the house. Closer to the front, there were three low shelves containing the few trinkets and decorations for major holidays. Rabbits, and scarecrows, and turkeys sat alongside wreaths, and Santas, and long, tangled strings of lights.

She lifted the lids on a few of the boxes and found old high school yearbooks, written essays, and varsity letters from her single, unspectacular season on the track team. A couple of larger boxes held her mother’s clothes and a few of her purses and shoes. She could almost smell her mother in them. She closed them again and opened a small wooden chest. It had been Amber’s long ago, sitting at the foot of her bed as a repository for stuffed animals and blankets, but it seemed her father had repurposed it. Now it was a collection, a collection of remembrances.

Her father had carefully tucked some old letters they’d written to each other when he was away at seminary. She glanced at a few, but almost felt as if she was intruding on the young lovers’ secrets. She found some photographs of their intimate wedding ceremony at the old Windrush Farm. And beneath them, she found a copy of their marriage certificate. Tears filled her eyes as she put it aside. A leather photo album rested in the bottom of the chest. It was neither dusty, nor old. Her father must’ve bought it recently. She opened it and found that he’d carefully organized old pictures of them just before they got married, and then more from their lives before children. When she turned a few more pages, she found herself pictured there as a little girl at Disney World. They all looked so happy with their Mickey ears on top of their heads and ice cream from the Mickey bars dripping down their fingers.

The last few pages of the album were of her mother in her sick bed. God, she’d gone downhill so fast. Cancer is a bitch no matter how you look at it. The last page was a photograph of the beautiful flowers on her mother’s grave. Her tears spattered the clear plastic as she closed the book.

She put the lid back on the chest, but took the album downstairs with her. She wrapped her arms around it and fell back asleep as a chilly, dawn drizzle began to peck against the windows.

For the second time in as many weeks, she had a terrible, lucid dream. She felt like she was stuck between reality and fantasy, never sure what was real and what was imagined.

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