Author’s note: This story is from far in the future of this universe, but only contains a tiny hint of events that happen before it. It has not been edited, because I am disorganised.
Trixie put down the phone with a sigh.
“Bad news?” Jim asked, coming up next to her.
She nodded. “It’s all over.”
Jim pulled his wife into a hug. “I’m sorry.”
For the last few weeks, Trixie’s Uncle Mart – really, her mother’s uncle – had been in hospital with a serious infection. The prognosis had never been good. The ninety-six-year-old had a long list of pre-existing medical conditions.
“Aunt Alicia is handling everything for the moment,” Trixie continued. “The funeral will be on Tuesday. Then I’m going to need to help Moms and Aunt Alicia with the house.”
“You’re going to go and stay in Philadelphia?”
Trixie frowned, thinking. “I think I’m going to have to. It’s going to be a huge job.”
Jim considered this for a moment. “I don’t think I’ve ever been there.”
“Oh, you’d remember, if you had,” Trixie replied. “Believe me.”
“That sounds rather ominous.” He gave her one last squeeze. “But whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it.”
Trixie pulled back, nodding once. “You’ll need to keep everything together here. I’m going to be away for a while.”
His mind flitted over all the commitments of their teenage kids, then he straightened his shoulders. “We’ll get through this. But I think I’m going to need to call in some help.”
A smile tugged at Trixie’s lips. “I’ll get right on to Honey. She’ll have you sorted out in no time.”
“She’s not a miracle worker,” he answered with a smile.
“You know what I mean,” Trixie answered, walking away from him. “But, I can’t stop now. There are things I need to get done.”
The whole Frayne family attended the funeral the following Tuesday, along with all of the Beldens. For the youngest generation, it gave a chance to catch up with their cousins, but little in the way of grief. Uncle Mart hadn’t been much of a figure in any of their lives – or even of their parents. But for Helen and Alicia, it meant that the generation before them had completely disappeared.
The eulogy, delivered by Alicia, told mostly of her uncle’s interests in later life. It gave little detail before the time of Alicia’s own memories.
After the service, Trixie took the time to speak to a few of her great-uncle’s friends from church. A small group of them sat to one side, ranging in age, Trixie guessed, from their mid-sixties through their early nineties.
“A very nice service,” a particularly elderly lady observed to Trixie. “Very nice, indeed. Though, I would have liked to see a few more of his old friends here.”
Trixie resisted the urge to point out that by the age of ninety-six most people had outlived all of their old friends. Instead, she asked how long the lady had known Uncle Mart.
“Oh, it must be about twenty years,” her new acquaintance replied. “Since around 1975, I’d say, at a guess. Yes, that would be about right; when Stanley Hinks was the pastor. That’s when your uncle started attending our church.”
Trixie chose not to point out that 1975 was actually over forty years ago. Instead, she commented, “I suppose you’ve had a few different pastors since then.”
“Oh yes,” the lady, a Mrs. Jackson, answered. She went on to name them all. “And this young fellow we have now is quite good. He does do a very nice funeral service, don’t you think? And that’s an important consideration at my time of life.”
“I would have liked a bit more on Mart’s young days,” the man on her other side interjected. “It’s all very well talking about stamp-collecting and lawn bowls, but a man has other interests in his youth. Not a word about motorcycles, for example.”
“I didn’t know Uncle Mart rode a motorcycle.” Trixie’s eyes widened. “Did he tell you about it himself, Mr.…?”
“Green,” the man supplied. “And, yes, he did. Many a time, we talked about those old days and the different models we rode. I would have like that mentioned.”
“I’ll have to ask Aunt Alicia if she knew,” she replied. “I wonder if we’ll find any photos.”
Mrs. Jackson gasped. “Are you – you’re not cleaning out the house, are you?”
Trixie nodded. “I’ll be helping with that. My mother and her sister are in charge, of course, but I couldn’t leave the whole job to them.”
“But you’re not selling it, are you?” Mrs. Jackson persisted. “You can’t!”
Trixie shrugged and shook her head. “That’s not my decision to make.”
“Don’t fret about it, Martha,” Mr. Green told her. “It’ll be in the Will.”
“I don’t understand.” Trixie looked from one of them to the other. “Why do you think it shouldn’t be sold?”
“Oh, I imagine you’ll find out, sooner or later,” Mr. Green answered, then pressed his lips together.
Later that day, the Fraynes drove past Uncle Mart’s house on their way back to their accommodation. They passed through street after street filled with Philadelphia’s iconic twin row houses, each with neat front gardens.
“Which way at that intersection?” Jim asked, as they neared a cross street.
“Uh, I think we’re nearly there,” Trixie answered, looking down at the map and then back at their surroundings. “I think that’s it, on the corner.”
Jim pulled over outside the corner house. The row houses on the street along which they had just driven had all looked alike. But the cross street held an assortment of house styles, all of them stand-alone buildings. The house on the corner stood out among them, with its dark, grey-brown paint job, its strange symbols and, above all, its collection of gargoyles.
“Ah. I think I see what you mean about remembering if I’d been here before,” Jim told Trixie.
From the murmurings in the back seat, it seemed that their offspring were similarly unimpressed.
“This is why we don’t visit,” Trixie replied. “Because no one wants to deal with this.”
“I don’t suppose your uncle was popular with his neighbours.” Jim pulled out from the curb and turned the corner to see the place from the front. A large tree obscured some of the more objectionable details, but some could be seen peeking through, here and there. “How did he get away with this, exactly?”
Trixie shrugged. “Who knows? But I don’t suppose it’ll be like this for long, now. I know Aunt Alicia will be happy to make things a bit more… normal, I guess.”
“Wait. Aunt Alicia lives here, too, doesn’t she?” Jim asked.
Trixie nodded. “She’s been living with Uncle Mart for about as long as we’ve been married. Maybe a little longer. It was after his first fall and she and Moms decided he couldn’t stay here alone any more, but he wouldn’t move.”
“That’s been some sacrifice,” he commented, as he pulled out once again and left the place behind.
“I know.” Trixie sighed. “And as much as I don’t want to have to deal with that monstrosity, I think she’s given up enough already.”
“We fully support you, Trixie,” Jim told her. “We’re going to make this work, for as long as you need to be here.”
She smiled.
The next morning, they checked out of their accommodation, rearranged cars and belongings and split up for their various destinations. While the rest of her family went home, Trixie headed for her uncle’s house. She arrived at almost the same time as her parents.
“Thank you so much for doing this, Trixie,” her mother told her, as the two of them walked up to the front door together. “I don’t know how we would get through this without you.”
Helen rang the doorbell, while Trixie began on a deprecating reply, only to stop short as the door opened.
“Oh, Alicia! What’s wrong?” Helen broke in, before her sister could speak.
“Have you seen the Will?”
Helen shook her head.
“Well, you’d better come in and read it,” Alicia answered.
“Right after we bring in our bags.” Helen glanced over her shoulder, to where Peter was still fiddling with something in the car. “Unless it affects all of our plans.”
Alicia shook her head. “Whether it does or it doesn’t, there is still work to be done here. Let me help with the luggage.”
Some fifteen minutes later, the four of them gathered around the table in the gloomy dining room and Alicia explained.
“I think you all knew that Uncle Mart appointed Helen and I joint executors of his Will,” she began. “He’s been perfectly open about that. However, I had never actually seen a copy of the Will itself until this morning.”
“But the funeral?” Trixie asked.
Her aunt shook her head. “All pre-arranged and pre-paid. I knew that I didn’t need to worry about the Will until after the funeral, and so I made the appointment with the lawyer for first thing this morning. When I got there, they gave me this.”
She slid a document across the table to her sister. Helen began to skim through it, flipping the pages until she reached one where a bright pink self-adhesive tab had been attached.
“What! Oh, no!”
“Oh, yes,” her sister contradicted. “And I’ve asked. It’s possible to challenge the major parts of this – some of the minor details are more like moral obligations – but if we choose that route, it will be difficult and expensive.”
“These things always are,” Peter commented. “But, in this case, we might need to consider it.”
Trixie stood up to get a closer look. “He wants this house to stay in the family?”
“Yes!” her aunt cried. “And exactly how it is now, too! And he expects me to maintain it this way!”
Slowly, Trixie shook her head. “The wording here, I’m not sure that’s what he’s asking. When he says, ‘my memorial to the dead to remain unchanged’, that doesn’t necessarily mean all that–” she waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the window, “–stuff.”
“But it does,” Helen answered, her manner much calmer than her sister’s. “For as long as I can remember, Uncle Mart has told us that he decorated his house this way as a memorial to the dead.”
Trixie looked around the room in which they sat, from the deep, dark browns of its heavy wooden furniture, to its black satin curtains, to the ornate silver candlesticks fitted with black candles.
“Which dead?” she asked. “Did he ever say?”
The sisters’ eyes met. Helen looked thoughtful, Alicia alarmed.
“That’s a very good question,” Helen answered. “And, you know, I don’t actually know.”
“Any and all dead, was my impression,” Alicia grumbled.
“Well, let’s not worry about that now,” Trixie suggested. “It doesn’t say anything about preserving all his old underwear, does it? We can still clear out things like that.”
Alicia looked ready to argue, but Helen stepped in. “You’re right, Trixie. Let’s do what we can and worry about what we can’t do later.”
By the end of the day, they had dealt with all of the clothes and toiletries, along with many of their uncle’s other personal effects. Peter had made good headway on the paperwork. Helen prepared a meal for them and served it in the kitchen, which was scarcely any more cheerful than the dining room.
“We should make a plan for tomorrow,” she suggested, once they had begun to eat. “What else is on the list of pressing tasks?”
Alicia sighed. “Nearly everything I intended to do this week is now impossible. Unless we choose to completely disregard Uncle Mart’s wishes, that is.”
“I’m still not sure that’s what he was asking,” Trixie put in. “And there’s something I wanted to ask. What’s in the space on the left as you leave the living room, next to the back door?”
“What space?” Alicia shook her head. “There’s no space there.”
Trixie frowned in that general direction. “I’m sure there is. I’ve walked that piece of corridor so many times today and I’m certain there’s a gap between here and there. There’s two or three extra paces on the outside of this room than the inside. And only one of those is accounted for.”
Helen gave the wall in that direction a thoughtful look. “A pantry, perhaps?”
“This kitchen could certainly use one,” Alicia commented, with a wrathful glance at the tiny one she had been dealing with for the past twenty years.
“But how would you get into it?” Peter asked. “There’s nowhere I can see on this side of the wall.”
“I was thinking about that, too,” Trixie replied. “There’s a worn place on the floor in the corridor.”
“Are you suggesting that there’s a hidden room in this house and I’ve lived here for over twenty years without finding it?”
Trixie hesitated for just a moment. “Yes. I guess I am.”
“Well, once we’ve eaten, we’ll go and look,” Peter decided. “I, for one, am not going to let my food go cold to find out right now.”
His daughter smiled and shook her head. “No, neither am I. It’s stayed hidden this long. Ten more minutes won’t hurt.”
The conversation turned to other matters until the meal concluded.
“Now, let’s go and look at this worn place,” Peter suggested, rising from the table.
They all stepped out into the dimly-lit hallway. On one side, doors opened into the dining and living rooms. At one end, a staircase led upstairs. Just beside this, the corridor turned and led to the back door.
“Here,” Trixie pointed, just past that turn. “Don’t you think that’s strange?”
Sure enough, even in the wholly inadequate lighting, it was possible to see that a patch of the flooring immediately next to the wall had become worn.
“Oh, that’s just because of the alterations,” Alicia explained. “It was done just before I moved in, I believe. The flooring dates to before the changes were made.”
But Trixie began tapping on the strange, panelled wall. “This part is different. And it’s shaped like a door.”
“Perhaps there was a door there, once,” Alicia argued. “I can’t quite remember…”
Helen shook her head. “We hardly ever came here. And we were never allowed outside of the living and dining rooms unaccompanied. I hardly even noticed this nook. In fact, I wonder if there even was a nook here. I don’t think I even knew where the back door was, and I must have passed here to go to the bathroom.”
“Well, whether it’s new or old, there’s still a doorway here,” Trixie pointed out. She found the hidden latch and opened it up for them. They all looked inside. “And I think this is what he meant by his memorial to the dead.”
“The pantry!” Alicia exclaimed, finding the light switch and turning it on. “Oh, Uncle Mart! How could you?”
The tiny room was lined with shelves and wallpapered with a bright motif of fruit and vegetables in shades of orange, yellow and green. The shelves from about waist-high to head-height held framed photographs and mementoes – silver-backed hairbrushes and tobacco pipes, lace handkerchiefs and vases of dried flowers, all of a jumble. The lower ones still had canned food and jars of preserves here and there, apparently decades old.
“There’s obviously not room in there for all of us,” Peter commented. “I think I’ll go back to the kitchen and start on the dishes.”
Helen smiled her thanks, even as Trixie entered the room.
“Who are all these people?” Trixie wondered, while peering at a small, black and white photo of a middle-aged couple. “I don’t think I’ve seen this photo before.”
“That one you’re looking at is my paternal grandparents,” Helen explained. “This was originally their house, I think.”
“Yes,” Alicia agreed. “After our grandfather died, when I was five, Uncle Mart moved back here and looked after our grandmother until she died.”
“Look! Here are our parents,” Helen added. “And there’s Aunt Hattie – she was actually our great-aunt, but that’s what we called her. And Uncle Elmer. And Aunt… Winnie. Yes, that’s it. Aunt Winnie and Uncle Irving. All of those were great-aunts and uncles on Dad’s side of the family.”
“Aunt Betty and Uncle Wesley.” Alicia pointed to another couple. “She was our father’s sister – and Uncle Mart’s sister, of course.”
“This baby is our older brother.” Helen picked up the frame to look more closely. “He only lived about six weeks, I think.”
Alicia pointed to a man in perhaps his forties, dressed in the style of the early 1980s. “Our cousin, Willard. He died in a car accident.”
“But who is this lady?” Helen asked, pointing to the biggest frame and the most elaborate display. “I don’t think I know her.”
Alicia shook her head. “She doesn’t look even a little familiar.”
Trixie looked from the photo to her aunt. “I think I can see a family resemblance to you. But judging by her clothes and hair, she might have died longer ago than you can remember.”
“That’s true.”
“What’s that one, down there?” Helen asked, pointing to a lower shelf near Trixie’s knees.
Trixie bent down and picked up the frame, which lay face down among a group of horrible things in jars.
“It’s Uncle Walt!” Alicia exclaimed. “What was he doing down there?”
Helen looked uneasy. “That didn’t look accidental. It’s like Uncle Mart put his brother’s photo there deliberately.”
Trixie frowned. “Why would he do that? Didn’t they get along?”
The two sisters shared a look.
“You know, I don’t remember ever seeing them together,” Helen commented. “We always visited Uncle Walt at his house and Uncle Mart here…”
“I don’t think I remember him.” Trixie frowned. “Right now, what I need is a family tree. I’m having trouble keeping track of people.”
“I don’t think you remember Uncle Walt because you probably never knew him,” Alicia replied. “Now, when was it that he died?”
“He wasn’t all that old,” Helen added. “Not quite sixty, I think. Trixie, you must have only been a baby.”
Trixie nodded and picked up a large envelope. She peeked inside and let out an “Oh!”
“What have you found?” Alicia pointed to the door. “How about if we take it outside. I can hardly think in this little room.”
Trixie stepped out into the corridor and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “It’s certificates – birth, death and marriage – and newspaper cuttings of the same sort of thing. And a few order of service papers from weddings and funerals.”
“We need a table,” Alicia decided. “Come into the dining room and we can sort them out there.”
Soon, the papers lay all across the table. After a few minutes of confusion, Trixie decided to organise them into a kind of family tree. They began with her great-grandparents’ generation at one end and ended with her children’s at the other. All of them belonged to members of the family.
Standing at the end of the table, Trixie stared at the arrangement. “I haven’t done enough research on this side of the family to know what’s missing,” she mused. “The Belden side was always easier, so I concentrated on it.”
“What do you mean, missing?” asked Alicia. “This looks fairly comprehensive to me.”
Trixie turned to her. “The thing that’s missing is the identity of that young woman. We already know she’s not any of these people.”
Alicia’s expression changed. She leaned closer and examined the documents, one by one. “You’re right: she’s not. But there’s something here for every single individual whose picture is in that room – except Uncle Walt.”
“Aunt Alicia, are there any more certificates anywhere?” Trixie wondered. “Maybe ones that might have been among your parents’ papers?”
“I’ll check,” her aunt offered, “but I don’t think so. At least, there won’t be many.”
She returned, a few minutes later, with a slim file folder. She handed it to Trixie, who flicked through its contents. She then asked for a piece of paper and pencil and began taking some notes.
“Moms, could you go to that room and write down for me the names of the people in the pictures and the way they’re arranged, please? I think I have kind of an idea.”
Helen nodded and went to do just that. She returned a few minutes later with a sketch.
“How is this?”
“Perfect,” Trixie answered. “Now, let’s look at the dates we’ve got here. Yes! They go kind of in order around the room – except where there’s a couple. In that case, they’re in the spot of the first one who died.” She pointed to the various names. “1922. 1925. 1947. Then there’s the lady we don’t know. 1952. 1958. 1961. 1969.”
“Wait!” Alicia asked. “Did you say 1947? That can’t be right. It must have been 1945.”
“Who was that?” Helen asked. “Oh, baby Dennis. Was it 1945, or 1946?”
“1945. I’m certain of it,” Alicia declared.
Trixie remained silent, frowning at the papers in her hand.
“That doesn’t matter, though,” Helen pointed out. “Whether it was 1945 or 6 or 7, he’s still in the right place.”
“Well, it can’t have been 1947,” Alicia insisted. “That’s when I was born and we weren’t twins.”
Helen nodded. “So it was.”
“If that’s all you need me for, I think I’ll go and help Peter with the putting away. He should be finished with the washing up by now.”
“What’s wrong, Trixie?’ her mother asked, once Alicia had left the room.
Trixie began to arrange some of the documents. “I don’t know if I should tell her,” she whispered. “Just look.”
Helen examined the three certificates, taking care to note the information that Trixie pointed to. She gasped.
“But that can’t be right!”
“Shh!” Trixie urged. “I don’t want her to come in here and see this. If she’s going to know, someone should break it to her gently.”
“But, Trixie, how can this be true?” Helen pointed a slightly shaky finger at her older brother’s birth certificate. “If baby Dennis was born in March of 1947 and died in June of 1947, how could Alicia be born to the same parents in July of 1947? It doesn’t make sense.”
Trixie made a helpless gesture. “I think the most obvious solution is that she wasn’t born to the same parents. I think she must have been adopted. Just look at the date of the registration. It’s more than a year after the birth. There would have been another birth certificate before this one, with her birth parents’ names on it. Then, after the adoption, they issued a new one.”
“But…” Helen trailed off, looking distressed.
“You always said that Aunt Alicia took after your father’s side, while you took after your mother’s side.” Trixie began putting the certificates back where she had got them. “Maybe there’s a reason for that.”
“So, you think it was a family adoption?”
Trixie nodded. “Because she does resemble your father’s side of the family. And that unknown woman.”
Helen sank down into one of the dining chairs. “I suppose that leaves us with two possible theories: one, that she’s the daughter of my father and the woman in the photo, or two, that she’s the daughter of one of my father’s brothers and the woman in the photo.”
“I think that sums it up.” Trixie paused, frowning. “Unless the woman is related to your father. That’s a third possibility.”
Her mother shook her head. “No. I’m nearly certain that’s not it. I think it’s one of the scenarios that I said first. But I didn’t think that either of my uncles ever married.”
“If my theory about the arrangement of photos is right, she must have died after June of 1947 and before your grandfather died in 1952.”
“In which case, I wouldn’t remember,” Helen concluded for her, “and Alicia probably wouldn’t, either.”
“And, if she really was her birth mother,” Trixie went on, “we can narrow it down further to between when Aunt Alicia was born and when that birth certificate was issued. In which case, she really wouldn’t remember, because she was only a baby.”
“I suppose so.” Helen looked back towards the kitchen, from which they could faintly hear Alicia’s voice. “But how could we ever find out what happened?”
“Is there anyone else in the family who might know?” Trixie wondered.
Her mother shook her head. “All of my parents’ generation is gone, now. And we only ever had two cousins on this side of the family – Willard, who died nearly thirty-five years ago, and his sister Maxine, who had a stroke and doesn’t really communicate any more.”
“Do either of them have a family?”
“Yes, but I’m not in touch with them,” she answered. “Willard’s wife remarried and moved away. Maxine’s son isn’t really interested in the extended family. I don’t think he’s in touch with his own cousins, let alone his mother’s.”
Trixie looked around, thinking. “Okay, then, possibly the best chance will be things we find in this house. Unless, of course, we can find someone who knew the family back then.” She frowned. “The people I talked to at the funeral had only known Uncle Mart since around 1975.”
“Well, I don’t have the first idea of how to find anyone else,” her mother replied. “I don’t even know if he or Uncle Walt lived here in 1947. They could have been anywhere.”
Before Trixie could answer, her father entered the room. “All finished?” he asked. “How about some television before bed?”
Helen smiled. “That sounds like just what I need.”
“Trixie?”
She shook her head. “No, thanks, Dad. I think I’m going to look in the old pantry a little more.”
“Suit yourself,” he answered. “But don’t stay up too late. Alicia’s decided that tomorrow’s the day for the gargoyles to come down and we’re going to need you to go up the ladder.”
Trixie grinned. “Sounds fun.”
They parted ways. Trixie entered the memorial room and began a systematic search. She took each photograph in turn, examining each of its associated objects, if any. Then she took the photo out of its frame to look at the back. At the end, she put everything back as it was before moving to the next one.
The first few shrines yielded little or nothing. When she got to the baby photo, she noticed the name Dennis written near the bottom corner in a feminine hand, which looked vaguely familiar – her grandmother’s, she guessed.
When she reached the unknown woman, she found her first real clues. First, she discovered that the photo was torn. An artificial flower lay against the frame and when Trixie moved it, she saw that it concealed a missing section. She glanced back at the baby photo. Had someone written a name on it? But why would someone tear that off?
A ring box, tucked behind the frame, contained a modest engagement ring. On the opposite side, a white, lace-edged handkerchief bore the initial ‘R’.
Trixie picked up the frame and turned it over. Someone had used sticky tape to seal up the back, but she patiently removed each piece until the back came free. Wriggling it, she eased the backing with its attached stand free and set it aside. Next, she removed a sheet of backing paper.
“What’s this?” she wondered, in little more than a whisper.
She lifted out a sheet of flowered notepaper, which lay between the photograph and its backing, and read the message written on it in a flowing, feminine hand:
Dear Mart,
I’m sorry, but it’s no good. I’m going to marry Walt. I hope that we will be able to be friends, as I’m sure we will see each other from time to time.
Your friend,
Rachel
A breath hissed out between Trixie’s teeth. This, certainly, could explain an animosity between the brothers. And it also gave her several ideas on how to find out more.
Returning the note to its position, she started to reassemble the frame. But as she picked up the backing, she discovered the missing piece of the photograph taped to it. To be sure, Trixie undid the work she had just done and removed the photo, carefully lining it up to the torn corner.
‘To my darling Mart. All my love, Rachel.’
For a long moment, Trixie just stared at the inscription. She knew that she’d have to put everything back the way it was, but should she show someone first? Or should this secret be left alone? Her great-uncle had certainly intended for this to remain hidden – but he hadn’t destroyed it.
In the end, she jotted down a copy of each and returned the frame to its original state and position. Then, with little hope of finding anything else of note, she moved on to the next photo.
Her next discovery came in the face-down frame, but it wasn’t at all what she might have expected, had she guessed what might be hidden there. It appeared to be a hand-written receipt from a company whose name she did not recognise and for what she could not ascertain. The dollar amount of $375.99 for ‘services rendered’ gave little clue. Again, Trixie wrote down the information and put everything back how it was.
Once she had gone through the memorials, she checked the rest of the shelves, fetching a chair from the kitchen to do the top one. Her aunt, it seemed, had retired to her room. Her parents were watching television, but she did not disturb them.
The lowest shelves yielded nothing of interest. She had nearly given up on the top one when she discovered another envelope, this one large and yellow. Inside, she found one single sheet of thick paper, unfolded, with a hand-drawn diagram on it. Trixie frowned at it, wondering what it was supposed to mean.
Shaking her head, Trixie decided to take a photo of the page with her phone and return it, too, to its resting place.
Seeing nothing else to do there, she returned the chair to the kitchen and then went for a wander around the lower level of the house. She poked at the papers still in the dining room for a minute or two. Then she sat down and re-read the Will, but without finding anything new. Losing interest in it, she moved on the the room which had been her uncle’s study.
While far from cheerful, this was probably the lightest and least gloomy of all the downstairs rooms. Her father had spent most of the day in here, sorting through the papers and trying to make sense of the finances. It seemed that Uncle Mart had made some strange decisions over the years.
Trixie moved across to the roll-top desk and opened it up. She smiled at the selection of stationery she found, which included old-fashioned nibbed pens – though no bottled ink, as far as she could see.
She tugged at one of the drawers, but it wouldn’t open.
“I’ve tried everything I can think of, but it won’t budge,” a voice behind her explained.
“Dad!”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to give you a fright.”
She shrugged. “I guess I was a bit preoccupied.”
“Did you find anything interesting among the photos?” As she hesitated, he added, “Your mother’s gone up to bed.”
Trixie relaxed a little and nodded. “I don’t know whether to tell her. It kind of looks like there was a love triangle between her two uncles and the woman in the photo.”
Peter grimaced. “That’s a bit awkward.”
She nodded. “Did Moms tell you what I found when we looked at the birth and death certificates?”
“She did.”
“Did I do the right thing in pointing that out to her?” Trixie wondered. “Because I could have just kept it to myself. Maybe I should have.”
“I’m glad you didn’t just blurt it out to your aunt,” he answered, “but I don’t see a problem in telling your mother.”
Trixie nodded. “If we tell her, and I really do mean if, I think Moms had better be the one to do it. But I don’t know whether to tell this part, or to just let it go. I mean, he left the evidence there. He could have destroyed it, but he didn’t. He must have known that someone could find it.”
“Do any of us really consider what will happen after we’re gone?” her father mused. “I don’t know whether we do.”
She sighed. “I wish I could ask him. But, even if he was still here to ask, I don’t know whether I’d go through with it.” A thought occurred to her and she changed the subject. “Also, I was kind of wondering, why was it that you named Mart after Uncle Mart?”
“Mostly because he hinted that he’d like that,” Peter admitted. “After Brian was born – and that was just a name that we both liked – your Uncle Mart kept starting conversations with various people about how, not having children of his own, he didn’t have anyone to pass things down to. When your brother came along, your mother and I agreed that we liked the name Martin and the nickname Mart. We were a little worried that we might have to follow through and name any other son we might have Walter, which we didn’t like so much, but the other uncle died long before that issue arose.”
“I’m sure Bobby would be relieved,” she commented, with a smile.
He nodded. “Your Uncle Mart made it clear that he appreciated the gesture. And, if you really do want to know what he was thinking, you might like to contact your brother. If there’s anyone in the family he’d have told things to, it would probably be his namesake.”
“It’s a good a suggestion as any,” she answered. “But I’m guessing that he never talked about this to anyone.”
“That’s probably a good instinct.” He patted her back. “Good night, now. I’ll see you in the morning.”
She wished him a good night, too, and returned her attention to the desk. The stuck drawer still called to her, so she set about examining it. It was one of two small drawers inside the top part of the desk. She moved aside the cup filled with nibbed pens and checked the side, just to make sure there wasn’t a hidden lock there. Then, she eased out the other drawer, which turned out to contain postage stamps and rubber bands.
Trixie slid her hand inside the cavity, but she could not find anything which would help. She rattled the other drawer again and something shifted. Holding her breath, she slid it slowly out. It contained several envelopes, the top one of which read,
For Alicia – to be opened after my death.
IMPORTANT
The last word was written in red, and twice as large as the rest.
She looked at the other envelopes as well, which contained important papers that her father had probably been looking for. After just a moment, she decided not to disturb him now, but to leave them for the morning
Her eyes strayed back to the first envelope. It was sealed. It wasn’t addressed to her. It probably contained information about the electricity bills, or something else uninteresting. Summoning up every ounce of self-control she possessed, Trixie put it down and switched off the light. The envelope would still be there the next day.
Continue to part two