“Oh yeah, she was stunning. All the old geezers in the park stared after her and some of the other grannies as well.” Andi winked.
“Do you have pictures of her wearing that dress?”
“I’m not sure. I think I took some, but I don’t know if she had them developed. You see, she insisted on using this old camera. She took tons of pictures of all kinds of things. They never were any good.” Andi chuckled softly when he remembered rainy afternoons going through stacks of poorly shot pictures, trying to find the few that weren’t blurred or with parts of the object snipped off. Sometimes they laughed until their sides hurt. The worst of the pictures got their own albums, which his gran titled ‘Never Stop Trying Volume 1-15.’ They had to be somewhere in this room, and suddenly he felt the urge to look at those, not packing up her clothing. Andi searched around, felt with his arthropod senses until he found them in a wooden crate underneath her bed. He got on his knees and pulled the trunk out. It was a nice trunk with ornaments whittled into it, and a sheen only high-quality wood achieved through ageing. George went down next to him.
“Wow.” He stroked the wood of the lid. “This is old.”
“Yes, old and probably too valuable to be sitting under a bed that’s no longer used.” Andi heard the bitterness in his tone and didn’t try to quell it. He knew he wasn’t taking care of the house and the things in it as he should.
George pressed a soft kiss on his temple. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You were busy surviving, and the trunk hasn’t taken any damage. You’re not neglectful. Just overwhelmed, and you have me now. I’ll look up how to treat old wooden trunks with gorgeous ornaments.”
Andi sighed softly, turning his head to kiss George’s lips. It was soft and sweet and everything he needed at that moment.
“Thank you.”
“I don’t know why you should thank me for pointing out the obvious.” George winked. “Now show me what’s inside.”
Andi carefully opened the lid. The lock was intact, but the key was long gone. Each album was swathed in silk paper, of course in different colors. The first he pulled out had a blue wrapping while the album itself was canary yellow. He undid the paper and opened the first page.
“Uhm…what exactly am I looking at?” George stared at the blur of pinks and greens with the not very helpful title ‘Fun day.’
“I’m not sure. Could be something in the garden. I mean, the garden is green?”
This had always been the funniest part—trying to decipher what Gran had captured after they both had forgotten where she’d taken the photo. The titles were confusing on purpose because, otherwise, looking at the albums would be boring or so Gran had claimed.
“Huh. I guess we now have something to keep our wits sharp.” George reached out to leaf through the album. He stopped at one page with three photos that looked almost identical, titled ‘Not the Same.’ “Is this to make us wonder what each could be while they are all the same, or is it really three different ones?”
“Do you think we’ll ever find out?” Andi stared at the pictures, mostly black with an indistinguishable shape in the center. “Mothman? Bigfoot? A finger in front of the camera lens? So many possibilities.”
George started chuckling. “I think I would have loved your gran.”
Andi froze for a moment. Then he leaned sideways into the man who had changed his whole life. “And she would have loved you. Just like I do.”
George kissed his head. “You know what, we could carry the trunk downstairs and place it next to the sofa. It would look good there, an eye catcher, and when we’re bored, we can get one of the albums out and play a hundred guesses.”
Andi pictured it. The trunk next to the sofa in the living room, not here, removed from his life, but at the heart of it. With sudden clarity, he realized that keeping Gran’s room closed off had also kept her memory in stasis. Like a butterfly in its cocoon, waiting to be reborn. Gran’s death had been the end of the caterpillar, so to speak, but by not letting her out of the room, he had denied her memory the chance to fly. It was time to remedy his mistake.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think that would be nice. Having her with me…us. Having her with us.”
George kissed him again then put the album back in its silk paper wrapping and into the trunk. They had to remove all the albums after a failed attempt to lift the trunk. Solid wood was a lot heavier than the plywood stuff George had had at his apartment.
“Quality work…” his man wheezed when they finally had the trunk downstairs next to the sofa. “Quality work is heavy.”
Andi kissed George on the cheek. He had earned it by lifting more than half of the weight. “I’ll get the albums. You rest for a moment.”
“I can help you!” George was following him upstairs, clearly not wanting to appear weak. They stored the albums back in the trunk and then went back and emptied the wardrobe. Gran’s clothing might be outdated, but it was all high-quality stuff. George did a search for some of the skirts and dresses, and apparently, they were vintage and therefore worth quite a lot. It was all about knowing one’s market. Andi didn’t like the idea of making money with Gran’s things for his own gain. It felt wrong, knowing what a generous and kind person she had been.
“If we donated her clothes to the soup kitchen two blocks from the precinct, they could sell them and use the money to renovate. It looks pretty shabby.”
“That’s a great idea, dear. I’ll call them and see if that’s something they want.”
As it turned out, the manager of the soup kitchen, a woman named Sheryl, didn’t just want the donation, but she was over the moon. And because Sheryl was obviously a go-getter, she asked if she could collect the clothes this afternoon. They agreed, and Andi was even relieved because it made re-thinking his decision impossible. Gran would spread her love and generosity one last time to those who needed it. Her memory was slowly emerging from the grays of Andi’s sorrow and starting to sparkle in all the colors under the sun again. A butterfly ready to take to the sun.
The weekend had exhausted Andi emotionally and since there were no new developments in Spartanburg, they made the decision to stay at home two more days before they went back on Wednesday. Andi felt a lot better, knowing deep inside that opening the room had been the right thing to do. He was content sitting in the car next to George, thinking about some of the antique furniture his gran had stored and which would best fit into his man’s room. It would be his birthday present for George, he decided, knowing he would love the opportunity to decorate the room the way he wanted it with the kind of high-quality furniture he appreciated so much.
These tranquil feelings evaporated the moment they arrived at the Spartanburg precinct. The plan had been to meet with Randy to get updates about the last few days, and what an update it was.
“Agent DeCapristo brought Rosalie Byrnes in thirty minutes ago. She’s put her in interrogation room four.” The young officer made a hasty step backward when he saw George’s face.
