17. Marnie

I lean against the doorpost to my old room, a spectator at a museum. Even though I only visited once a summer, Gus dedicated this bedroom in the basement to me. I decorated it. Had my own bedding. Books and stuffies. I made it my own.

Except, it’s not my room anymore.

There’s a One Direction poster on the wall. I’m not sure if the guys in One Direction were even born when I lived here. The dresser has a scratched up Pokemon sticker stuck to the side. And above the bed, a craft project. She wrote her name in feathers and sequins.

Sienna.

This was her room. Judging by the dust, it’s been a few years since she used it. Dusty mentioned they lived in the house for a while, but I assumed it was a temporary arrangement. This doesn’t have a temporary look, which is confusing, because Gus never mentioned he had two kids living with him. Then again, I’m sure he would have told me if I bothered to ask.

If I’d bothered to visit.

Guilt sloshes around in my stomach as I turn away. I remember Gus mentioning he put some of my stuff in the attic. I played up there when I was little. It was a treasure trove of family memorabilia. Antiques. Fur stoles and costume jewelry from another era. I think of the sod house Dusty showed me and wonder if there are any pictures of the family that lived there.

I pass through the house. My grandfather, a man who died before I was born, built this house for my grandmother back in the ‘60s. I never really felt a connection to this place, never felt a pull, but as I pass through the kitchen, I find myself wondering about them. Mom never really talked about her family. Or Silver Bend.

It was like she wanted to leave that all in the past.

It was irrelevant to her.

Pulling the trap door down from the pantry ceiling, I climb up the rickety rungs and poke my head into the dark attic. It’s warm, but not unbearable. If I tried pawing around in here later in the summer, it would be a sauna. Flicking the light overhead, I pause and look around. It’s not a full attic, the ceiling is maybe four feet from the floor.

As I stare at the neatly stacked crates and boxes, it occurs to me that I’ll have to clear this out if I sell the place. More guilt settles around my chest, filling the spaces between my ribs. Like my ancestors are crowding around me, asking me why I’m tossing them aside.

Crawling forward on my knees, I find Great, Great, Great grandpa Henry’s train chest first. It has transport stickers, written in spidery handwriting. They traveled from New York. To Chicago. And from there, forged west. They settled on the vast prairie before Nebraska was even a state.

There are old albums inside, full of ghosts. No names. No years. Just relatives who might have given me these freckles.

And, of course, they all have the damn eyebrows. I glare down at one cheeky looking lady. “Thanks for the parting gift, Aunt Whoever-You-Are.”

When I realize there’s no one left to explain who these people are, a feeling of melancholy descends on me, and I move away, resolving to look at it another day.

I find a pink tote with my name written in Uncle Gus’s crabbed handwriting. I flip the lid off, smiling at the teddy bear staring up at me. My gaze catches on a cardboard box behind that, with another set of handwriting I recognize. She always signed her name like that. With a little flourish, letters fat and plump like marshmallows.

Naomi.

My mother.

Scooting my tote aside, I flip the lid off my mom’s box and stare down at a neatly stacked pile of yearbooks. A pair of track shoes and a set of blue and yellow pom-poms. Beneath the pom-poms is a shoe box. I lift the lid off and find a second set of treasures. A dried corsage with a yellow polka dotted ribbon. I recognize it from the picture at Tia’s place. That picture was black and white. The ribbon from the corsage paints the photo in my memory, tinting my mother’s dress soft yellow.

There’s a jewelry box with a heart pendant with the letter ‘N’ engraved on it. And beneath that, a stack of notes. They come in all shapes and sizes. Scraps of notebook paper. An old hall pass. I flip it over and find a poem.

Roses are red

Violets are blue

I’m horny as heck

And your ass is cute

-JL

I guess most high schoolers aren’t known for their poetry. I peer down at the masculine initials scrawled in chicken scratch. Mom never mentioned high school boyfriends, but whoever JL was, he sent her plenty of notes.

And she kept them.

That has to count for something.

A pang of loss cuts through me as I realize I can’t ask her about them. Entire decades of her life I can never know about.

Except, not everything is lost. These are the clues she left clues behind.

Maybe, if I can unravel some of this, I can understand why she hated this place so much.

And if I knew that, I might feel a little better about cutting ties with it.