Missing Piece

Prologue

AMY

I park my car on the same spot my grandfather used to park his. Although, the parking lot is renewed and grandpa's car stopped parking here long time ago. I make my way to the entrance of the building. I haven't used that key in 8 years. Haven't been inside this appartment  just as long.  I step in the elevator and push the button for the 4th floor. 

I hope i don't run into anybody that remembers me. Last time I was here was almost a decade ago so I don't even know who lives in the building anymore. I now stand right outside the familiar brown door, staring at it. Normally my father would stand there waiting for me to come inside. Not this time. I unlock the door, and push it open, expecting to find a never-ending chaos. Garbage everywhere you step and broken stuff like the last time I was here. Instead I come faced with boxes neatly piled up in a dusty and almost completely empty livingroom.

I take a few steps inside and take a look around. It all seems so much smaller than I remember. I can still recall all the furniture we once had. The big fancy dining table that we never used for dinning. Grandma's armchair where id sit on her lap as a little girl. The couch where grandpa would sit on watching tv every evening and even the art that was decorating the walls that he brought from his trips overseas before he retired.
He loved his trip. He loved being on the ship, travelling the world. My father used to say that he loved it so much that when he needed to retire, he never got over it. That's what made him grumpy all the time and caused most fights in his marriage.

I walk further in the apartment, slowly ,as if I'm trying not to wake someone sleeping in the next room. I find the boxes with the label "Amy".  Those must be the ones Electra was talking about. After dad passed, I couldn't find it in me to come and help her sort his things out. My big sister did everything on her own, once again. She cleaned everything and putted things in boxes. She donated all the clothes that were left behind. All she wanted to keep, she took back to her place so that leaves me with the aftermath. Her instructions were clear. If there is anything I want to keep, it comes home with me, the rest I throw away. I feel guilty for not doing this sooner. Its not so much my own guilt as much as it is my mother's words planted in my subconscious. I expected her to be at the funeral. They have had a divorce ever since I was 4 but still I thought she'd be there. They shared 2 daughters after all. It didn't make much difference to me, but I thought she'd be there for Electra. Then again, I almost didn't go myself .

I sit on the couch that is covered with a white plastic-like sheet that protects it from the dust and bring closer one of the boxes with my name on it. I stare at it for a minute. I can't imagine there will be anything in these boxes that's actually mine. For all I know dad sold the majority of our things after me and Electra moved out. I open the box and take a look inside. To my surprise I see some of my grandmother's photo albums amongst some old toys , stuffed animals I haven't seen in years and notebooks. I can't believe my sister left those behind so I shoot her a text to confirm she didn't want them.

" I found like 6 of them. i thought you should have some too."

I smile at my phone, send her a simple thank you back and begin going through the pages. It is as I remember in chronological order, as she always made them. "One day we'll be gone and all you'll have to remember us by are these photos."  is what she always told me when putting a new album together. Given her and grandpa's age, she must have known we'd still be young when we lose them. Old memories tend to fade away. She wanted to make sure these wouldn't. Seeing how I don't remember half of those occasions appearing in the photos, I guess she had a point.

I open some more boxes and find old posters and magazines that we used to collect as kids, some old cd's, posters and a thick notebook that I don't recognise. Its quite a unique thing with dark, almost black pages and a white thin marker attached to it with a pretty string. I kinda like it and even though it doesn't belong to me, i keep it.  The rest goes to the box that I'll leave at the  dumpster.