Family Stories. Tessa McDermid

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      My thanks to the Joplin Writers Guild for their support and encouragement; the Joplin Public Library for resources and answers to questions; Gloria Harchar for critique and computer help; my editor, Paula Eykelhof, for direction and wonderful editing; my sons, David and John, for giving me a reason to keep telling my stories. And to Bob, my husband, who always believes and provides love and support throughout the writing process.

      Prologue

      Summer 2004

      Hannah scrambled up the last few rungs of the rickety ladder and then tugged her brother into the attic. “You’ve got to be quiet, Preston, ” she whispered. “We don’t want Grandma to find out we’re up here.”

      “Wow!” He straightened, his head bumping the single lightbulb. Shadows danced around the walls, creating silhouettes of a forgotten Christmas tree, complete with decorations, a dress-maker’s dummy, a rocking horse and other remnants of the owners’ lifetime in this house.

      “Didn’t anybody ever throw stuff away?” He stepped over a broken chair, the arms crooked, and bent to examine an old chest, its lid askew and clothes spilling out.

      “I don’t know. But we’re not here to look at the junk.” She headed for a waist-high pile of boxes stacked neatly against the far wall. “We need pictures. Lots and lots of pictures.”

      She sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the boxes. Preston plopped down next to her. Dust flew into the air and he sneezed.

      “Be quiet!” She held her hand under his nose. “We’re almost directly over the kitchen. If Grandma hears us…”

      She opened the top carton. Inside were stacks of folders, each labeled with a date from decades past and kept together with colorful rubber bands.

      “Here, you look at these.” She handed him a stack, then pulled out another one for herself. She slid off the rubber band, and photographs spilled into her lap.

      Several minutes passed quietly, the only sound the soft rustle of paper. “Okay, these might work.” She flipped over a photo of a man standing stiffly behind a young woman seated in a stuffed chair. “G.G. labeled all of them on the back, with the date and the names of the people in the picture. I think these are G. G.’s mom and dad. Our great-great-grandparents.”

      She held the photograph by one corner, peering at her ancestors’ faded expressions. G.G., her great-grandmother, was 93. That meant the picture was more than a hundred years old.

      “How do you know who any of these people are?” Preston shuffled through his photographs, barely pausing at any of them.

      “Because I listen to stories. Stop it, you’re gonna rip them.” She scooped the pictures out of his lap and carefully placed them back in their folders.

      “I don’t want to look at old pictures. Hey—some of this stuff is probably worth a fortune now.” He crawled over the floor to a wooden trunk perched under the window.

      “Fine. I don’t need your help, anyway.” She’d actually invited him because the attic made her nervous. The few times she’d managed to slip up unnoticed by her grandmother had been at night, with only the single lightbulb for illumination. With the afternoon sun shining through the small oval window, the room seemed less eerie. She could have left Preston downstairs.

      Except that he might’ve gone looking for her, which would have alerted their grandmother to her absence. She sighed and opened another box.

      Her great-grandmother hadn’t filled this one with neatly cataloged folders. Instead, Hannah stared at old albums stuffed with envelopes of pictures and loose bundles of photographs all tumbled together.

      “Well, crap.”

      “Umm.” Preston scooted back to her side. “Mom doesn’t like you to use that word.”

      “Oh, shut up, Preston.” She squinted at the top picture. Not even a date from the developing. “Okay, this seems more recent than the others but who are these people?”

      Preston peered over her shoulder. “Maybe Grandma and her sisters?”

      Hannah glanced at him in surprise, then studied the black-and-white picture again. “I think you’re right.” Three girls, wearing frilly dresses, stood hand in hand. Behind them was the fuzzy outline of a house and a tall tree with a few leaves on it. “Easter, ” she said out loud. “The trees are budding.”

      “Or maybe autumn, with the leaves falling off.”

      She’d give him credit for guessing the identity of the three girls, but these leaves weren’t the dry leaves of fall. “We’ll go ask Grandma if she remembers this picture.”

      Preston jumped to his feet. “But if you show her the pictures, she’ll know we were in the attic.”

      Hannah shrugged and stood up. She thrust two boxes of pictures into his arms and gathered two for herself.

      “You don’t care that she’ll know we were up here?”