Madelyn "Lyn" Creeke and her grandmother were the last of their family. At least, that's what Lyn's grandmother always led her to believe.
Lyn had never heard of or seen pictures of Georgina Creeke, a great aunt that had been living a few hours awa...
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That next day was a busy one.
The Trimbles were a nice, quiet couple, but two more couples were joining them that Wednesday afternoon. Then, not long after that, the house would be full again. I had little time left before the competition and I certainly wouldn't be getting any work done once the weekend started, since I had to manage the guests all on my own. It was now or never if I was going to work on the ornaments. So, after I cleaned up the Trimbles' room, I hailed a taxi and headed into town.
The first stop was the art supply store and then to a copy center to make what amounted to hundreds of copies of photos, ticket stubs, posters, recipes, and so on. Already rather loaded up, I made my last stop at the department store. As I had expected, we were still a couple weeks away from Christmas and the decorations were already discounted. I took a deep breath and meandered through the picked over aisles.
I somehow pulled myself away from the journal the night before so I could finish my plans for the trees. I still had lots left to read, but I reached another unfortunate event in my family's history. It left me too burdened with remorse to move on to the next episode, and it added even more weight to my rather weak shoulders.
Not long after the whole tragic ordeal at the graduation, my aunt received a letter from Jack. When I read about it in Gina's journal, I wondered why I hadn't spotted the letter in the box. However, after rooting through it a bit more, I realized she included it in the giant bundle of letters she'd written to him. Apparently, it took him some time to digest what he saw that day, and then it took him longer just to get settled in at college before tracking her down. Once he reached out, he didn't say much. He kept it short, saying he had thought it over and figured he should get to know his aunt since he never knew his father. I'm sure that statement hurt Gina, considering my grandmother's sentiments, but she must have gotten over it once she saw his contact info listed at the bottom of the letter.
According to her journal, my grandmother's threat still held power over her and so she didn't write back to my father. I still struggled with this image Gina painted. I knew my grandmother to be stern, but also kind. Sure, she was forthright, but she had the best of intentions and she always took other's feelings into consideration. Well, at least, everyone's feelings other than Gina's. Which is why she probably appeared to be a vicious monster to my great aunt. Still, whatever threat Gina believed my grandmother held over, that didn't stop her from reaching out to my father. She just didn't write to him. Instead she called, writing in her journal that she preferred it anyway, as she loved to hear his voice. It made him real, she said.
They spent the first few years getting to know one another. She checked in on him to make sure his studies were going well, listened to him gush about girls, particularly one that would later be his wife and my mother, and offered advice about pursuing a career since she had all kinds of job experience in all kinds of fields. He, in turn, relished in her stories of the people she met at the bed-and-breakfast. He wanted to know all about renovations and plans for the house. Most of all, he wanted to see it some day.
