East West Sunset - A Darry Curtis Fanfiction

Chapter Twenty

I stared in shock for a second but quickly gained control of my emotions. I was excited as well as nervous. What an unexpected find! This house was sure to be jam-packed full of secrets about why my mother was disowned; I had hit the jackpot! I figured it would be wise to not reveal myself as Mrs. Jean's long-lost granddaughter, though, in case she and my mother still had hard feelings and she didn't want to reveal anything. Worse, she could kick me out, and then I could lose my job. I held my tongue.

"Hello, ladies. I have a few jobs for you today, besides cleaning the ground floor," she began. "The basement could use an airing out, so if one of you could open one of the windows down there, that would be excellent. A few things need to be taken special care of today. I'm having a little get-together, a soiree if you will, tomorrow night, and the floors need to be spotless." She said this with so much energy that I flinched a bit. "Everything needs to be completely dusted as well. You can get started." She stood from her perch and swept elegantly from the room.

"Of course, ma'am," Holly called after her. She turned to me and rolled her eyes. "Okay, let's get started, then. Why don't you go open the windows in the basement so it can air out while we work. The basement door's just across the hall, on your left," she said.

"Okay," I agreed, my heart beating a little faster. Who knew what I could find in the basement?

I quickly located the door and opened it quietly. The stairwell was dark and spooky, and the stairs creaked as I stepped on them. Luckily, once I reached the main room of the basement, it was illuminated by a few squat windows near the ceiling. I tried to flick on a light switch to further light up the space, but the few lightbulbs hung on the ceiling were too dim to be of much use. I picked my way across the basement towards the windows, a daunting task, since the cement floor was jam-packed with a maze of cardboard boxes and old furniture. A couple of old dining chairs, strung with cottony spiderwebs, made the perfect stool to stand on as I reached up towards the windows. The latches were at the very top so that the windows hinged downward like an oven, but they were stuck fast and wouldn't budge. I stabilized myself on my perch on the chair and tried harder to prise it open. Finally, it came loose, and the window nearly banged down on my head before it stuck in its open position. I sighed in relief and moved on to the next window.

The next couple of windows was easier than the first, but the last one I had to open was extremely stubborn. My fingertips barked in protest as I tried to get that stupid latch to move. I was about to give up when it gave, and the sudden lack of resistance caused me to lose my balance. The chair creaked ominously as I stumbled backward, and though I managed to plant my right foot safely on the ground, I was still off-balance. I tripped over my own foot and tumbled into a stack of boxes, which scattered all over the place. Luckily, they didn't make a lot of noise, but their contents, a bunch of papers, were strewn all over the floor and would surely be noticed. Cursing, I leaped up and began to shove the papers back into their boxes at random, hoping that someone wouldn't come down to investigate what was taking me so long.

The papers were mostly old bills, though some looked like letters, and every so often a photograph cropped up. I barely glanced at them; they mostly seemed to be of my grandmother and another man who I assumed to be my grandfather. I didn't really stop to investigate anything until a little square of lavender cardstock caught my eye.

I picked it up and turned it over. There was a picture taped to the pale purple paper of a laughing man with his arm draped lovingly around a woman, who gazed up at him. The words "You Are Cordially Invited to the Wedding of Kathleen and Charles" was written in gold ink across the bottom.

I stared at it for a second. Both the woman and the man looked horribly familiar; and then I realized. That woman was my mother, Kathleen Jean, and that man...