Dust floated in the air, light catching it as old boxes were opened, sending particles everywhere. No one had been up here in years, which was evident by the cobwebs that hung from the ceiling and the stale air. It was odd how many things there were here, how many things one person could accumulate over time. Some of the items were sentimental, like old wedding pictures, but others had no meaning at all, like old sewing materials that were left behind from projects that had been forgotten about many years ago.
I had visited this house many times through the various stages of my life. When I was young, I would come and run in the sunlit yard, swinging on an old tire from the tallest oak tree I'd ever seen. When I was a little older, I came and sat at an old wooden table, holding a mug that radiated heat. I looked across the table to see an old woman with kind eyes and snowy hair. We talked for hours at that table. Now I only wished I could be at that table instead of the chilled, dark attic.
I could hear voices from downstairs. There were lots of people helping us move out furniture and other items. There was no time to wait for the wounds on our hearts to heal, everything had to be out before the funeral. I had needed to get away from it all, get away from all the heat and noise and memories downstairs. The memories were the worst. Every single item down there reminded me of her. Sometimes I could have sworn I heard her laughing down the hall or calling for me or that I could smell spaghetti sauce cooking on the stove. That had always been her favorite thing to make, spaghetti.
"Have you found any pictures, Josie?" Ben called from downstairs, "You sure you don't want me to come up?"
"No, I'm fine. There's just a lot of stuff up here, it'll take me awhile to go through all of it," I would reply, hoping I was loud enough for him to hear me.
"Alright, well, let us know if you need any help! We didn't get a whole team of people from the church for nothing!" I could hear the humor he forced into his tone. He always sounded that way but today it seemed uncomfortable, as though even if he couldn't see me, he still wanted to see the small twitch upwards of my lips. I'd never been the sort of person that smiles so wide you can see all their teeth or laughed so hard my ribs hurt. Only a few people had ever seen me do either of those things and I wouldn't be seeing again one of those people ever again.
"I know, I know. I'll be down soon, I promise!" I spoke loud enough that I believed he'd be able to hear me and I supposed I succeeded, based on the fact I was only met with silence.
I continued to wander around the boxes, allowing my eyes to glaze over the descriptions of the contents of each box. They had been written clearly once with bold, dark markers but most of the descriptions had faded with time. How long had all these boxes been kept, I wondered. Finally one box in particular caught my eye but not because it was labeled with any particular year or item. No, I saw a small blanket sticking out of the box.
It was a pretty blanket, though it didn't appear particularly soft. It had to be for a very small child, if not for a baby. I knew I had seen it before in pictures, it's distinct purple color making it stand out from the rest of my family's baby blankets. I reached forward and grasped it. Before I could pull it to my chest, before I could even finish taking a breath, the world blinked before me. I was not in the attic anymore.
I was in a large hall of some sort and there were pastel decorations hanging everywhere. A large banner was strung across the room proclaiming 'It's a girl!'. People were milling about the room, making small talk and I let my eyes wander across them before I took in a sharp breath. My mother was there. She was pregnant and it appeared she would be having a baby soon. I was the youngest of my siblings and I noticed Benny and Silas running around.
"No fair, you're bigger than me! You gotta' slow down!" Silas was yelling.
"If you're gonna' be a good cop, you have to know how ta' catch the robbers even when they're faster! They ain't gonna-"
"Mom says ain't isn't a word!"
"They aren't gonna slow down when they're taller! You have ta' keep up!"
"Boys, come get something to eat!" my mother was calling for them. That was when I saw another woman walking towards my mother and I felt my heart twist. It was a woman I recognized even without her white hair, even when she wasn't sitting across a table with a steaming cup of hot coco in her hands.
"Now I know you told me not to get anything for this but-" my grandmother would start.
"Honestly, Mom-"
"But I just couldn't imagine not getting something for our sweet little Josephine so I just made a little something-"
"You didn't have to do that-"
"I know that! You just take this, young lady. I'm sure you'll need it."
With that exchange, she's hand my mother a gift bag and watch as she opened it up to reveal the purple blanket I knew I had picked up many years after this happened. I didn't even know about this party or where we'd gotten the blanket. The world seemed to blink once more and I was looking at the faded purple baby blanket I held in my hands. It was still soft and it had caused my hands to grow warm since I'd been holding it. It smelled like mothballs and it had fraying edges but I loved it.
"Josie? Josie? Aren't you ever gonna' come down?" Silas was the one yelling now.
"Yeah, I'm coming!" I would reply. Should I tell him? Tell him I had just seen something unexplainable, something that had occurred at least a few months before my birth? I wasn't sure, it might just make everyone think I was imagining things because I was upset. Besides, I wasn't sure anyone would want to talk about that sort of thing now, not when we were preparing for grandma's funeral. Maybe when things settled down and I was sure of what had happened.
As much as I wanted to stay in that cozy attic and continue rummaging through the treasures that had been hidden for so long, I didn't want either of my brothers to worry. With that in mind, I walked towards the hole in the floor that spilled light into the room, clutching the blanket to my chest as I lowered myself to the ladder and climbed down.
