I feel my face heat, but there’s probably not enough light for her to see it.
She looks at me for a long while, considering. “Can I show you something?”
“Sure.”
She goes upstairs and I go with her. I follow her into the guest room and she opens the closet. I haven’t really opened it or used it since I’ve been here. It looked like most of my grandmother’s old things were stored in there, but at the bottom is a box and Aunt Amy kneels and opens it, digs around, and pulls out a photo album with green flowers all over the front. She sits on the bed and pats the spot next to her and I sit.
She flips through it for a time, pausing here and there, and there are pictures of people that aren’t family. People I’ve never seen before. I can see some were taken when she was in college during the war. There are some ladies in uniform and a few guys. She stops at one page, though, and looks at it, then she arranges the album so half is on my lap.
It’s a film strip of pictures taken in a photo booth. Aunt Amy was younger, I can see it around her eyes and mouth. There’s a girl in the pictures with her. In the first one, they’re cheek-to-cheek, smiling toothy smiles at the camera, in the second one the girl is kissing Aunt Amy on the cheek.
And in the third, she’s kissing Aunt Amy on the lips.
I take off my glasses then put them back on. I look over at her, but she’s smiling down at the images, a bit of sadness in her eyes.
It settles over me slowly, piece by piece, bit by bit. I examine the pictures closer, especially the other girl. She’s curly haired, blond. Pretty in a way that takes time to get used to, sweet-faced in the way you’d expect your best gal to be.
“Louise,” Aunt Amy says softly. She leans over and puts her finger beside the girl’s face. “She was a senior when I was sophomore. I didn’t have any friends my first year, and she sought me out at a party. I didn’t want to be there. I was such a wallflower.” She laughs. “And I was just sitting in the corner, everyone was playing records, and I was just sitting there, and she came over to me. I thought she looked like an angel.”
I can see that. In the girl’s smile. “You were…fond of her.”
“Yes.”
“And she was fond of you.”
“She was.”
“What happened to her?”
“She went home. After graduation. She was from Pensacola.” She gives the pictures one last look, then closes up the album. “I suppose she’s married by now. Has a family.”
I think about that. “And you miss her?”
“Yes. Sometimes.”
We sit there for a minute in a silence that isn’t entirely uncomfortable. I look over at her and she looks over at me. She must see the question I’m afraid to ask.
“There are two things that you can do,” she says. “You can choose the easiest thing. The thing that everyone expects of you, that everyone does. Or you can choose the hardest thing. The thing that you can live with and feels right to you. But you’re the only one that can make that choice, Paul. And you’re young enough to have plenty of time to think on it.”
“You chose the second thing.”
She looks down at her feet.
“But you’re lonely.”
“I’m not lonely. I have you. I have friends.”
“How come I’ve never seen them?”
“I don’t have them over much. Even before you came here. The neighbors sometimes…they notice things…” She waves her hand as if she’s dismissing and then fiddles with the edge of her nightgown. “But if you’d like to meet them, I can introduce you.”
“Lady friends?”
“And some nice fellows.”
I push my glasses up my nose. She takes the album and puts it back in the box, arranging everything the way it was, closing the closet.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again.” I look down at my bare feet.
