Secret in the Attic

I'm sorry I missed a week and am late this week. It's been a little crazy lately what with work and driving and lack of sleep and all. I wrote something new and I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I hope you like it.

It was a really windy, the day she arrived at the house. It had been threatening to rain all day, but so far only the wind had arrived.

She had driven all day to make it to the house before everyone else arrived. She wanted to have some time to herself to face the house. She hadn’t been here for five years, but she had been expected to be here this time, regardless of whatever had happened previously.

The house was three stories tall with whitewashed siding and a dark green door and shutters. It was an old Victorian house. Most people would love the house. It really was beautiful. She was not most people.

She forewent the front door and instead went to the back yard. There was a rope swing hanging from the large oak tree. She used to swing off it into the lake that stretched out to the East. She looked toward the back door. There was a screened porch around another dark green door with a window.

She remembered the door well. It was the one that had allowed her to escape.

She had run out of the house that day through that back door. Now, she would enter the house for the first time since then through that same door.

She strode determinedly toward it, climbing the five stairs quickly. She opened the screen door to the porch and crossed to the green door. But there she hesitated. She could hear again the screams of that day. She didn’t even have to go inside to hear it. To see it.

She had run down the stairs from the attic and found her mother in the kitchen. “How could you not tell me? Why did you never tell me?”

Entering the kitchen she could see the scene between herself and the woman who had raised her. They had fought for an hour before she had finally left. Her mother called after her, “Really, Eliza. It’s not that big a deal.”

But it was a big deal. So big that she hadn’t spoken to her mother since. She hadn’t been to the house where her family spent most weekends during the summer since that day.

She moved through the kitchen and started climbing the stairs to the second floor. Then to the third. Then finally, she pulled the hatch down to release the stairs to the attic where she had found the papers that had torn her world apart.

She found the spot where the papers had been. She didn’t know if they’d still be there, but it didn’t matter. She remembered what they said.

“I thought you would be here before everyone else.”

Eliza turned around to see her father coming up the stairs to the attic. “I had to come. My brother is getting married. I couldn’t miss that. Even if he really isn’t my brother.”

“Just because we adopted you doesn’t mean we’re not your family.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“We didn’t want you to feel exactly what you are feeling now.”

Eliza looked down at her feet and then up at the man who had been her father all her life. She wanted to forgive him.

“You’ve had five years, but I can see that you need more time. I will be here when you’re ready.”