Prett sat at the dining table, staring at a lone flickering candle in a banana cream pie while his family sang Happy Birthday to You. Val led the ensemble in a rich baritone, though Genevieve's high-pitched warble threatened to outperform him. Even Danny joined in with harmonious vocalizing. Jane herself would have sung louder, but the honoree looked tormented enough by the attention.

"Happy birthday dear Prett, happy birthday to you."

A second after the voices faded away, Val sang an addendum, "And we do mean you."

Dona giggled and clapped.

"Oh, don't look so sour, Prettamin," Genevieve said. "You didn't think we'd forget your birthday. Now blow out your candle before it liquefies the pudding."

Prett complied, and Holly pulled the pie towards her so she could cut it. As she dished out slices, Prett opened his gifts, an assortment of clothing and gadgets. Jane's gift to him was a large sketchbook.

"I thought you could use it to create your woodworking designs," she explained when his eyebrows knitted in puzzlement. "Instead of drawing on scraps of newsprint."

Prett gave a nod and thanked her before opening his next gift, a pair of work gloves from Danny.

"Birthday pie," Genevieve said as Cadence passed a slice to her. "Never heard of such a thing. If the bananas had to be used up, they should've gone into a cake. Or bread. But Holly insisted on pie."

Prett turned to Holly. "Much appreciated."

Holly smiled. "Glad you approve." She leaned forward and said loudly, "He likes it, Nana."

"Well, of course he likes it! I'm not disparaging your cooking, dear, just questioning your ideas of proper birthday fare." Genevieve craned her neck to view the table's contents. "Is there no ice cream, either?"

*****

Genevieve held Jane's upper arm as the two walked into the former's office. "So many boxes!" the older woman said of the stacks lining the floor. "Vivian saved every shred of paper imaginable. Lands! I don't know how I'll ever find anything. No rhyme or reason."

"Holly said it's been slow going," Jane replied. "Searching for the photographs of my grandmother."

Genevieve settled in a chair by the table. "So many memories. I start reminiscing and before I know it, it's time for bed." She waved her hand at the boxes. "I'll have to live another hundred years to sort through them all. But you say you've had better luck?"

Jane opened the box Danny had carried in earlier. "My mom had some old photo albums of her family. I looked through them and I think I found Catherine." She placed a gold album on the table and flipped past several pages of black-and-white baby pictures, stopping at a group snapshot. "This is my mom," she said, pointing to a young girl with Shirley Temple curls standing in front of a dour-faced woman in a gingham dress. "And Grandma Jane."

Genevieve leaned over to look. "Yes, yes. That's Jane Aden all right. Didn't end her fondness for lemons, I see."

Jane pointed to one of two similar-faced men. "I think this is my Grandpa Arnold. He died before I was born. Mom said he was a twin, so this other guy must be his brother. I don't know who this girl is." She pointed to a pretty teenager in a tea-length dress. "But I'm wondering if this is Catherine." A petite blonde in a two-piece fitted suit smiled at the camera, holding an infant.

Genevieve peered at the woman in the photo. "Yes. That's Catherine. She looks happy. Healthy." Her blue eyes grew watery, and she pulled out her handkerchief to dab at them. "She was no more than a wisp when I knew her. A fragment of a person." Genevieve blew her nose. "I wasn't as kind as I could have been. As I should have been. I directed my anger at her rather than at my father where it belonged. But no one dared express anger towards him."

Genevieve leaned over the photo again. "John and Vivian tried to find her. They made discreet inquiries when Father was still alive, for there were rumors..." She rubbed her gnarled finger over a bubble in the page's plastic sleeve, studying Catherine and her child.

"Rumors?" Jane prompted.

"After Father died, they made more of an effort to find her, but had no luck. Even so, they structured the trust to include any direct heirs." She shook her head. "I told John numerous times to leave Father to his own destruction, but he chose to stay. He wanted the opportunity to undo the damage." Genevieve turned her eyes to Jane. "Father used his wealth as a weapon. John wanted to use it as a gift. Though I don't think a few trinkets at Christmas will make up for the years of torment Father inflicted on so many innocents." She looked at the photo again. "Catherine escaped. I'm glad. I'm glad she stayed hidden from Father. If only she would have taken Samuel with her."

"Samuel?"

"Her son." Genevieve shook her head with sadness. "She left him behind. And he turned out just like Father. Ruthless. Cruel." She sniffled. "John tried to be a better influence, but...in the end Father had his way. And now Samuel's dead, too. Died this last fall." She gave a wavering smile at Jane. "Yet I live on. What purpose the good Lord still has for me, I can't imagine."

"I'm trying to figure that out, too. For myself."

Genevieve patted Jane's knee. "But you have many more years ahead to discover that. I might have only hours."

Jane grinned. "I think you have longer than that."

Genevieve's lips turned up in a mischievous smile. "Days?"

"Mind if we join you?" Holly asked as she and Cadence walked in. "We want to hear more of the family stories, too."

"Yes, yes, come sit down. Jane is showing us her family this time."

The women pulled up chairs and Jane passed around her albums. Together they identified Jane's grandparents and great-aunt Catherine in dozens of photos spanning thirty years. They concluded Catherine had married Jane's great-uncle, for the two were often photographed together. They appeared to have had two daughters, for the unknown teenage girl and the infant in the first photo showed up often throughout the years, eventually having children of their own.

Jane's final album contained her baby and school pictures. "Oh, don't look at these," Jane said, flipping the pages past her middle school years.

"No, let us see," Holly said.

"But I look horrible." Jane pressed the open album to her chest. "Mom gave me these God-awful perms, and I had braces."

"Let us see," Holly repeated. With a grin, she tugged the album away from Jane and flipped the pages back. "Oh, this isn't so bad. This is cute. You look like Little Orphan Annie."

"Give me that," Jane said, trying to retrieve the album.

Holly turned away. "No, if we're going to know you, we have to see your awkward years, too."

"Fine. But only if I get to see yours."

"Nana has all my school pictures up in the basement."

"And you look pretty in all of them."

Holly relaxed back into her chair. With an air of mock pretension she said, "Don't hate me because I'm photogenic."

Jane laughed. "You're a brat." She waved her hand at the album. "Fine. Look at my dreadful Orphan Annie years."

Holly held the album up so the others could see.

Genevieve tutted. "Most unfortunate."

"Oh, now these aren't so bad," Holly said after turning the page. "Your hair looks cute in braids."

"No more Orphan Annie," Cadence said.

"No, more like Pippi Longstocking," Genevieve said, causing Holly and Cadence to collapse into giggles.

"You're all terrible," Jane said amidst her own laughter. "I don't want to be friends with you anymore."

"Oh, but these are better," Holly said of the next set of photos. "You finally learned how to tame your curls."

"No, I just refused to get any more perms. And I was allowed to cover my freckles with makeup."

"Freckles are adorable," Holly said.

"A smattering of freckles on the nose is adorable," Jane retorted. "Not a whole face full of them."

"Is that it?" Holly asked when the following pages came up blank.

"Yeah. After my parents died, I didn't have many pictures taken. And now I mostly have selfies."

Holly let the album's remaining pages flip shut. "Hey, wait," she said, reopening the back cover. "Yeah. Look, another photo."

The other women leaned in to see. A middle-aged man in a dark suit stood next to a woman in a black dress, her hand holding a red-headed preschooler against her leg. Standing slightly apart from the woman was a scowling teenage girl, her arms crossed, her blonde hair teased into a mass of kinky waves.

"My parents and me," Jane said. "At that funeral." She pulled an album off the table and flipped through several pages till she found a set of photos they'd looked at earlier. "See, they're wearing the same clothes." She glanced at the red-headed preschooler. "And so am I."

"Who's the blonde?" Holly asked.

"Don't know. Another cousin, I suppose." She tilted her hand towards the album in her lap. "Like these people."

"She looks familiar somehow. Did we already see her in one of those?"

"I don't think so. She kinda stands out with that hair."

"Totally eighties," Holly said. "You've seen Pam's high school montage haven't you?"

"Yeah," Jane said with a laugh, visualizing the photos in Genevieve's basement of Holly's older sister.

"I'm so glad I was a nineties teenager," Holly said. "We had much better hairstyles."

"I agree."

Holly tapped the album. "So why did this photo end up here?"

"I don't know. Maybe we should move it to this one." Jane glanced back and forth between the albums. "Yeah. I think it'll fit on this page."

She pulled back the clingy plastic covering the photos in her album while Holly did the same on hers. The latter then carefully unstuck the lone photo from the yellowed adhesive before flipping it over to check the back.

"Nothing."

"Too bad Mom didn't write down names," Jane said. "I don't suppose I'll ever find out who half these people are."

Instead of handing over the photo, Holly studied it more closely. Her eyes flicked up at Jane then back at the picture. "She's definitely your cousin. That's why she's so familiar." Holly handed it to Jane. "She looks like you."

"Me?"

"Yeah. Imagine you with poofy blonde hair and no freckles. And an attitude."

Jane smirked. But as she examined the teen, her smile faded. This girl indeed had her rounded cheeks, her perky nose, her thin lips. Jane recognized the heart-shaped face as one she'd often seen reflected back at her, complete with the same surly expression.

Jane's breathing quickened and the sound of blood rushed through her ears as the memories flooded back. A distant cousin's funeral. Pouting in the backseat. Locking herself in the motel bathroom. Watching the car drive away. Throwing the caramel roll on the gravel.

And an earlier memory. Sitting at the kitchen table across from her mom, the latter explaining all she knew of Jane's biological mother. Her mom's mouth moved, but only a few words echoed across the expanse of time: alcoholic, daughter, raped, twelve.

And years before that, a different funeral. One she was too young to remember. One with a teenage girl whose face mirrored her own.

"Jane?" Holly put her hand on hers. "Are you okay?"

Jane gave a nod. "I think...I think she might be my mom." Her voice sounded astonished even to herself.

"Yeah, you said that was your mom and dad," Holly said with confusion.

"No, I mean this girl." Jane looked from Holly to Cadence to Genevieve. "I was adopted." She looked back at the photo. "That's why my parents were so much older. They adopted me later in life. They never told me from who. But...maybe it was from family. A cousin. Maybe that's why..." Why we never visited them. Except at funerals.

"Are you sure?" Holly asked after a few moments of silence. "That girl doesn't look old enough."

Jane smiled. After having related her story separately to each of the Marvel brothers, she could now do so without collapsing into tears. She told the women what she knew of her origin, including her treatment of her parents the last years of their lives. When she finished, Holly stood and hugged her. Genevieve took her hand, and even Cadence wiped away a tear or two.

"I'm so sorry," Holly said, rubbing Jane's upper arms before returning to her seat.

"Thanks," Jane said, looking again at the photo. "I wonder if that's why it's in my album instead of with the others."

Genevieve squeezed her hand. "Perhaps your mother meant to tell you but didn't get the chance."

Jane nodded. "She tried to tell me a lot of things I didn't want to hear." Her voice cracked and her eyes flooded with sudden tears. "But I'd listen now."

Cadence jumped up and grabbed a box of tissues from the desk. She handed the box to Jane, who used several before getting herself back together.

"I seem to do a lot of crying lately," she said with a last sniffle.

"You're not the only one." Holly gave a wan smile.

"Indeed not!" Genevieve said. "It's this looking at yesterday's mistakes and regrets!" She patted Holly's hand. "Even good memories produce such a longing on my heart I feel it will burst from the strain. That's why I never wanted to open up the past. So much pain all around. Box up our lives and hide it away." She turned back to Jane. "But that only shrinks our world, making us afraid to let anyone in. Instead of protecting us it's rotting away our souls." She grasped Jane's hand and jiggled it. "Till one day a little red-headed orphan drops in our laps and shakes everything up!"

Holly laughed. "Oh, Nana, you're funny sometimes."

"Funny or not, I need to use the bathroom. Help me up, dear."

Holly tucked her hand under Genevieve's upper arm and lifted the old woman upright.

Jane moved her chair to let them pass. With a sigh, she surveyed the albums and loose photos scattered on the table, then at the photo still in her hand.

"You have shaken things up," Cadence said.

Jane looked at her.

Cadence's expression was tight, though her eyes shimmered. "I tried to get Genevieve to tell me about her past once, when she first had me pack everything up and move it to the quonset. I wanted her to read the old love letters between Margaret and Wiley. But she wouldn't. She didn't think there would be any point. But she was wrong. They helped me. Just like Prett's letters helped me. I didn't know...I didn't understand how...men and women are supposed to love. I was never taught that. I didn't see it much growing up. Those letters..." She wiped her eyes. "They taught me how a man respects a woman. How I should respect myself."

She looked around again. "Genevieve never wanted to look in these boxes. But I've been waiting years for them to be opened. Because there are so many more letters I didn't get to read." She smiled at Jane. "So you have shaken things up. For the better."

Jane thought about the shake-up she had caused the brothers. "I...don't know about that."

With a smile, Cadence stood and picked up the album Holly had left on the chair. She opened the back cover. "I think your mom put that photo here for a reason. She wanted you to see it, but not right away. Probably when you were older and ready to know the truth." Cadence pulled the plastic off the adhesive where the photo had resided.

Jane looked at the photo once again, this time noting her mother's forced smile and the way her hand pressed against little Jane's chest, preventing her from careening off to adventures unknown. As for the teen girl, she made no effort to hide her own disdain for the photographic moment.

"Yeah," Jane said as she placed the photo back into place.

Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Please help me improve my writing by pointing out problems. And if you like what you read, please click the Vote button below. And comment! I love comments! 😊

Fun Fact 1: Once again I used real photos to help me with the descriptions of Jane's photos. Her photo of her mom, grandmother and Catherine was taken in 1946. I needed a group shot of women & children around that period so I could describe clothing and such. Here's one taken in 1943 with my own grandmother, great-aunts, aunts, and cousins:

Front row: Duane, Bob & Don Eversoll. Middle row: Leota (Schmutz) Markley, Nell (Adair) Aurand, Stella (Aurand) Schmutz, Margaret (Aurand) Eversoll, Isabel Aurand holding Jane Eversoll. Back row: Probably Effie (Aurand) Vaughn, Unknown, probably Merna Schmutz holding Stella Mae Rembolt, Probably Viola (Schmutz) Rembolt.  

My grandmother, Nell Aurand, is wearing a gingham dress, so that's why Jane Aden wears one in my story. Grandma Aurand also happens to have a dour expression in this photo--which fits Jane Aden's character (at least Genevieve's description of her. 😂)

My aunt Margaret is wearing a short-sleeve fitted suit, so that's why Catherine Aden is wearing one. My aunt Isabel is wearing a tea-length dress (as are the rest of the women) so the unknown teenage girl in Jane's photo is wearing that.

Jane's mom was four years old in my imagined photo, so I found one taken in the 50s of such a girl:

Eugene Obland Jr. and probably his niece, Diana Ross, circa 1955.

Fun Fact 2: The video at the top is Ed Sheeran's Photograph.

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