Mrs. Avery

Chapter 39 (5 months after death)

Agnes felt the guilt wash over her as she pulled a blanket and pillow out of the closet for James for what felt like the millionth time. When she went back into the kitchen she stared at her mother's vacant room. She hadn't really bothered to go in there. And she knew it was well past the time for it. There was no reason that James should be sleeping on the couch when this house had 4 bedrooms.

This weekend, she decided as she pulled her eyes from the door. True to her word she went in that weekend. She pulled all the linens, emptied all the drawers being careful to keep the pictures and notes in a separate pile and then she cleaned out the handicapped bathroom off to the side of the room. She was doing so well until she pulled all the boxes that were filled from the drawers and started to go through them.

There were pictures she didn't understand. There was a picture of Momma as a young woman holding a small baby.

Why don't I know who that is? She asked herself.

There were random odds and ends to follow the picture. Then some pill bottles that she emptied into a bag and tossed the bottles in the trash. Then she found an old Polaroid picture of Momma with a small Agnes and a toddler Molly. Molly clearly looked like she was pitching a fit and Agnes had a hand over her own mouth as she was slumped against Momma. But Momma had the biggest smile across her face. Her hair was done up and she was wearing a suit. She looked like she had conquered the world. Agnes smiled, but then it twitched downward. Everyone in this picture was gone except for her. And the sweetness of her initial thoughts turned bitter. She closed her eyes to fight the crying that was desperately trying to meet her, which the kids immediately caught onto and surrounded her at the kitchen table. It was like they could sense her weakness. They were like sharks that smelled blood.

"Is that Mom-mom?" Juli asked peering over her shoulder.

Agnes tried to contain her sigh as much as possible. "Yeah."

"And that's you." Liam added.

"Sure is, baby."

Agnes flipped over the picture and saw some writing. "Officially Family" was written on the back and a date that Agnes assumed was the day it was all made legal. She tried to contain herself and tuck the picture in a box with the picture of Momma holding the other baby.

"Who's this?" Liam said as he dug out the other picture from the box.

"The young woman is Gramma Jo. I don't know who the baby is." They flipped it over. "I'll love you always." Was written on the back.

"Is it you?" Liam asked.

Agnes laughed and it killed off her tears. "No, honey. Gramma is a young woman in that picture. I probably didn't come to live with her until about 40 or 50 years after that."

"Ohhh."

"When did mom-mom? When did she go to live with Gramma?"

My god with these questions, Agnes tried to laughed to herself, but it didn't stop the warmth building in her face.

"Well, I was a baby, but I believe it was a year or so after me."

And as it had crossed her mind before, it crossed her mind again. Maybe that's why Molly hated people that gave children up for adoption. Maybe she remembered more. She was so young though so maybe they weren't real memories, but wisps of feelings and things that had happened, which would explain why she never talked about it. There was nothing to talk about, but the feeling. And Molly would talk about the feeling whenever it came up. She hated people that could give up their children.

"Who are these people?" Juli asked pulling another Polaroid from the box, but Agnes didn't know the answer to that either. It was two different people holding the baby, but they couldn't possibly be the parents, not biologically anyway. Agnes tried to swim through her own confusion. She flipped it over. "I found them" was written on the back. She flipped it back over and looked closer, but those people didn't look familiar. The couple in the photo was clearly middle aged when Momma had been young. Agnes probably never met them at all. It still bothered her all the same.