Book of Resolutions

Chapter 11

NOVEMBER

By the time November rolled around, Ben had been in physical therapy for several weeks. He was better, but still recovering. While he recuperated, he agreed to help me with a project that had long needed to be done: straighten out the photo albums. We put boxes of photos and ratty old albums on the dining table along with new albums and worked on them when he began to feel better. I took the photos out of the old albums and boxes and arranged them while Ben snapped a photo of them on his phone and uploaded them into digital storage. Then I transferred the pictures to the new albums. As we worked we shared stories of the pictures and enjoyed the walks down memory lane.

It was nearly Thanksgiving. We hadn't done an activity for the month and I was afraid that once we got caught up in the holidays it might not happen at all. We had given lazy consideration to Ben's choice for the month. He had planned to teach me to bow hunt, but it had sparked a friendly argument: I pointed out that we HAD practiced archery before when he had shared his camp skills with me when he was a strapping teen and I was a scrawny child. The point of the experiment was to do things we hadn't done before. Ben argued that it didn't count since that had been target practice and this was hunting. I countered that bow hunting was the same as target practice, except the target was moving. It was a moot point since we had passed bow season while Ben was recuperating.  However, we debated the point anyway until Ben found a photo that led to another idea.

We were going through the oldest album on the table: one I had inherited from my mother. There was a photo of a group of children, Katie Lee and I among them, sitting on a tall set of concrete steps, the sun in our eyes. Then there were two other photos: one of Katie Lee by herself on the steps, then one of me. I must have been about 2 years old.

"Where was that picture taken?"

"That? That was at my Great-Aunt Lou's house, over in Paint Rock Valley—out near Princeton, Alabama."

"Is that the Aunt that raised your Daddy?"

"Yeah. She actually delivered Daddy. My grandmother was expecting and they went to visit Aunt Lou, her sister, overnight for Thanksgiving. It rained really hard and the next morning floods had cut them off. My grandmother went into labor; it was premature. Aunt Lou delivered my Daddy but she couldn't get him to breathe. Uncle Andrew took him, massaged his heart and breathed life into him."

"I never knew that."

"Daddy was named 'Louis Andrew' after Aunt Lou and Uncle Andrew, then 'Lee' for his Father. 'Louis Andrew Lee O'Brien'."

"So, you're named for your Great Aunt and Uncle AND your Dad."

"Yep. Katie Lee is 'Katherine Lee' after Mama, 'Lila Katherine', and 'Lee' for my Daddy and granddaddy."

"Do you remember your Aunt Lou?"

"Not very well. Uncle Andrew died way before I was born. When Daddy was only a little boy, Grandpa dropped him off at Aunt Lou's house and just disappeared. Then Aunt Lou died in a house fire a few months after Daddy and Mama...after they..."

Ben cleared his throat. "Your Dad had a sad life."

"Well, it wasn't all bad. He had Aunt Lou, and then he found Mama. They were happy together."

"Lou, I'm thinking: I don't know much about your Dad's family, and I bet our girls don't either."

"Hmm...I guess not. I don't know a whole lot myself."

"You don't have a lot of family left."

"No. It's just me and Katie Lee and Buddy Ray—our children and Buddy Ray's Denise. The Rose name will die with Buddy Ray."