Post-its, paper clips, and 3 × 5 note cards were housed in a wire mesh drawer organizer. The large desk drawer on the right contained Kate’s household files. The drawer on the left held hard-copy recipe files. I tapped the keyboard, the screen came up.
No password protection, not a good idea.
I double-clicked on an intriguing icon.
Well, this is interesting. Kate is writing her own cookbook. One of her secrets?
She hadn’t mentioned it to me. Then again, we hadn’t talked all that much since I arrived. And, so far our conversations had been a little less than friendly. According to the file date, this was her latest draft. I clicked through her recipes until I found the lemon cookies: almost no sugar, loads of lemon juice and zest, with plain Greek-style yogurt. The cookies were soft, chewy, creative, and yummy. Leaning back in the squeaky leather chair, I rubbed my eyes. Tiredness was taking over. My mind wandered to an unhappy place.
I never got to know my mother very well; her fault, not mine. What I did know, I didn’t like. Growing up, I always felt the Army totally suited Mom’s personality. She was cold, unfeeling. And, of course, absent for most of my life. I never understood what my dad saw in her. Still can’t. It must have been the sex. Although I had difficulty imagining that she ever gave herself fully to him. All I knew was she never gave anything of herself to me the few times she graced us with her presence over the years. What a waste her visits were. Why did she even bother? Some sick sense of maternal responsibility? Well, she slammed that door shut seventeen years ago.
And, how about Kate? She appears to be my mother’s polar opposite. She definitely isn’t all buttoned up and self-absorbed like her older sister. But, it’s clear Kate still has unresolved family resentments. One could say we have that in common.
I closed my mind to the bitter memories, then closed the cookbook folder and browsed the other icons. Kate had already set up a folder for the soon-to-be-scanned family photos.
On the floor next to the desk were two small, dusty old cardboard boxes of photographs. Unlike everything else in this house, the boxes were not organized. Everything had been thrown in and, judging from the amount of dust, never looked at again. I had expected it to be a quick and easy gig, but that wasn’t the case. I’d have to organize everything myself before I began scanning. If I started working with the photographs now, I could put off looking at the bag of Voodoo stuff until later. Kate would be home soon. Going through the bag was something better handled when I wouldn’t be interrupted, maybe later tonight after Kate was asleep.
I moved from the chair to the floor with my water and cookies, started sorting through the pictures: color in one pile, black-and-white in another. I would separate the two piles chronologically later, as best I could, anyway. Some of the photographs were so old, they pre-dated Polaroid. The resolution wasn’t good on any of them. I wondered if Kate had Photoshop? I got up, checked the computer’s program list. No Photoshop.
Note to self: ask Kate to buy Photoshop.
I should be able to clean up a lot of them.
From the quick color/black-and-white sorting, I could tell that almost all of them had been taken before my mother’s hasty departure from New Orleans seventeen years earlier. Unless there was another box in the attic, it appeared that very few family photos were taken after she left. Maybe the family broke then and couldn’t be put back together. How sad for them. How sad for me. I had been denied in a way I could neither understand nor explain. This was going to be a lot harder than just organizing photographs. This was like trying to piece Humpty Dumpty back together again to make a “family portrait.” One that I’d had no part of until yesterday.
I sipped my water and finished my cookies while I deliberated how to proceed. Start with the oldest
No password protection, not a good idea.
I double-clicked on an intriguing icon.
Well, this is interesting. Kate is writing her own cookbook. One of her secrets?
She hadn’t mentioned it to me. Then again, we hadn’t talked all that much since I arrived. And, so far our conversations had been a little less than friendly. According to the file date, this was her latest draft. I clicked through her recipes until I found the lemon cookies: almost no sugar, loads of lemon juice and zest, with plain Greek-style yogurt. The cookies were soft, chewy, creative, and yummy. Leaning back in the squeaky leather chair, I rubbed my eyes. Tiredness was taking over. My mind wandered to an unhappy place.
I never got to know my mother very well; her fault, not mine. What I did know, I didn’t like. Growing up, I always felt the Army totally suited Mom’s personality. She was cold, unfeeling. And, of course, absent for most of my life. I never understood what my dad saw in her. Still can’t. It must have been the sex. Although I had difficulty imagining that she ever gave herself fully to him. All I knew was she never gave anything of herself to me the few times she graced us with her presence over the years. What a waste her visits were. Why did she even bother? Some sick sense of maternal responsibility? Well, she slammed that door shut seventeen years ago.
And, how about Kate? She appears to be my mother’s polar opposite. She definitely isn’t all buttoned up and self-absorbed like her older sister. But, it’s clear Kate still has unresolved family resentments. One could say we have that in common.
I closed my mind to the bitter memories, then closed the cookbook folder and browsed the other icons. Kate had already set up a folder for the soon-to-be-scanned family photos.
On the floor next to the desk were two small, dusty old cardboard boxes of photographs. Unlike everything else in this house, the boxes were not organized. Everything had been thrown in and, judging from the amount of dust, never looked at again. I had expected it to be a quick and easy gig, but that wasn’t the case. I’d have to organize everything myself before I began scanning. If I started working with the photographs now, I could put off looking at the bag of Voodoo stuff until later. Kate would be home soon. Going through the bag was something better handled when I wouldn’t be interrupted, maybe later tonight after Kate was asleep.
I moved from the chair to the floor with my water and cookies, started sorting through the pictures: color in one pile, black-and-white in another. I would separate the two piles chronologically later, as best I could, anyway. Some of the photographs were so old, they pre-dated Polaroid. The resolution wasn’t good on any of them. I wondered if Kate had Photoshop? I got up, checked the computer’s program list. No Photoshop.
Note to self: ask Kate to buy Photoshop.
I should be able to clean up a lot of them.
From the quick color/black-and-white sorting, I could tell that almost all of them had been taken before my mother’s hasty departure from New Orleans seventeen years earlier. Unless there was another box in the attic, it appeared that very few family photos were taken after she left. Maybe the family broke then and couldn’t be put back together. How sad for them. How sad for me. I had been denied in a way I could neither understand nor explain. This was going to be a lot harder than just organizing photographs. This was like trying to piece Humpty Dumpty back together again to make a “family portrait.” One that I’d had no part of until yesterday.
I sipped my water and finished my cookies while I deliberated how to proceed. Start with the oldest
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