The Attic.

I blinked dirt from my widened eyes and moved inside. It seemed empty and the light inside was ashen, like winter. Dust drifted into the air and danced softly around me as I crouched on all fours and hesitantly crawled ahead. In the corner were some old blankets, three or four wooden toys, a sooty pile of books and some boxes, everything surrounded by cans and glass bottles that must not have moved for years. Soup cans. Beans. Rice. Crushed juice boxes. The books were varied: a dictionary, nursery rhymes, an elementary school textbook, a Bible. I gripped one, my fingers wiping away grime, and opened it. A small slip of creased paper fell out. It was a faded color photograph of a family.

It was my parents. They were young. My Father had his glare, but in this photo he showed an optimism in his eyes that I’d never witnessed. My Mother looked pretty and she appeared satisfied, but unsure of life. In the photograph she was seated next to my standing Father, holding an infant in her arms and a large doll on her lap. Was the infant me? It was a baby, a baby like any other, but the doll next to it was what drew my eye. It was misshapen, the pallid face contorted unnaturally with mouth open. Its awkward body was partially covered in what looked like a patterned homemade pink dress. But however grotesque the doll looked, it was clear that it was looking directly at the camera and it was holding the baby’s hand.

I turned the photograph over and read the words in crayon written on the back, scrawled in clumsy block letters:

ME aNd mY broTher.