War Cry

War Cry- Ch 9. Grandmothers decision

Annalee hadn’t been to the old storage house in ten years. Not since grandfather locked it.

             He had told her it was for her own good, and that with time the pain would heal on its own. It didn’t, the pain was only buried deep inside of her. She was reminded of that now, as she stopped in front of the large oak doors wondering whether or not it was in her best interest to go in.

             She flipped the small key in her hand over once before sliding it into the lock and reopening the door which may or may not hold her childhood memories.

             The storage house was filled with boxes that towered high over Annalee’s head. It would have been easy for any person unfamiliar to its walls to become lost ans confused, but she knew exactly what she was looking for, and therefor exactly where she was going. Following a narrow path, she made her way to the back of the room and sat down next to a stack of boxes marked with her name. The contents that filled them were hers; they had once belonged to her family, but now, only her alone.

             Sighing, she lifted her hair back into a ponytail and looked at the stack of boxes that called out to her. For some time now she had wished they were empty, and not filled with memories her heart and mind had locked away from her –much like her grandfather had done to this very room. It was quite a feat for grandmother to convince him to let Annalee back in, but it had been so long she hardly cared anymore –or so she thought.

             If anything, she feared their contents. She feared the woman who her mother had been, and the possibility of knowing of her father- a man she had no recollection of, and had been given no information about. To Annalee, he was neither a name, nor a story, had it not been for her presence on the earth today it would seem like the man had not existed at all.

             She lifted the first box down from the tallest stack and began sifting through its dusted contents. She found pictures upon pictures of herself, sometimes with her mother and a man she was unfamiliar with. Sometimes the pictures were cut or ripped, as if someone had been removed. But, anything could have happened over the years.

               She continued examining the pile, stopping at one of her mother in her youth.  She was beautiful and tall, possibly a few inches taller than the height Annalee stood at now. Her long black hair was almost the exact same as Ally’s, and her eyes were like a direct copy. Annalee really was the spitting image of her mother.

             She put the picture to the side of her, intent on keeping it, before picking through the rest of the pile. The man had shown up many times in the photographs, sometimes holding Ally, and other times standing in the doorway of what seemed to have been their old home. The last picture in the pile was of the three of them, Annalee had been only an infant at the time, no older than two. The man held her in one arm and her mother around the waist with the other.

‘He must be my father.’ She thought, examining his features in search of similarities. She found none.

Her father had been slightly taller than her mother. While his eyes were a dark brown, nearly black, Annalee’s were light, and shifted shades with her mood.

             The more pictures she found of her broken family, the more interested she was in who they were- who they really were. Had her father been nice? Did he care for her mother? How did they meet? Her parents looked genuinely happy, and madly in love, and her childhood-self looked happy and carefree.

             Annalee decided to keep all of the pictures, and placed them to the right of her with the one of her mother before picking up a book. On the first page, there was a picture of an ultrasound, with ‘it’s a girl!’ written in pink letters. Flipping to the next page, she saw pictures of her overly pregnant mother. Continuing through the book, there were more pictures of her mother and then finally of a baby girl. ‘Annalee Sullivan-Lacion, November 15th, 1992’.