The woman tore the lid off the photo box and hastily shuffled the photos around, looking through the polaroids, news clippings and snapshots with shaky hands, sniffling back sobbing induced snot and pausing to wipe her angry tears from her eyes.
She found a picture. It was of an old man, rumpled clothing and a smile that had turned to a grimace with age. His wrinkled face was turned slightly and the sight of it brought a heavy lump to her throat and a burning heat to her stomach. The old man was holding a baby, her baby. It was her oldest daughter being held by the woman’s grandfather. It had been taken several years prior while he was still alive.
Her fingers fumbled at the edges of the picture and her vision blurred as they again filled with hot, angry tears. She pulled at the picture, fingers slipping as she attempted to rip the hateful thing into pieces. She tried again. The corner came, then a large strip and the pieces fell from her trembling hands. In part she blamed herself, though she knew she shouldn’t. It was not her fault, she didn’t do anything. Exactly, you didn’t do anything. The though stung her. She could have done something - she could have said something.
Her eyes closed and the unwanted memories met her behind her eyelids. The dark hallway, with four doors - one bathroom, three bedrooms and a closet - and one strangely located cupboard. A drawer in the kitchen opened, silverware jostled about, then closed again. A four year old girl with hair chopped to her shoulders - “To prevent ticks!” - and dark eyes wide in the dim lighting pressed herself tightly against the wall, leaning away from the approaching gentlemen who reached out and touched her as he passed. Her skin bumped with creepy crawlies and the rock in her tummy felt heavy. Her tongue was hot and dry and she shook like she was cold even though it was hot outside but she couldn’t help it and her eyes had too much water and she didn’t like it - The grown woman blinked open her eyes, bringing herself back to the present.
Then her high school best friend’s words rang in her ears like a bad recording. “You just want attention, you made it up.” Over and over and over and over and then her half sister’s angry rebuttal. “That never happened. You’re all liars.”
The burning anger, her own mother knew, she knew and she did nothing. Her mother could’ve have put a stop to it, she didn’t have to bring them there to the twisted house of horrors and that perfect little yard and “what a lovely family” - lovely family her ass. For crying out loud her half sister was probably a product of - well they didn’t know who the father was. Her mother had to know, she bore the evidence and yet, she left them unsupervised.
Her older sister could’ve stopped it. Oh, but she didn’t know. She stopped visiting grandma and grandpa’s house as soon as she was old enough to make other plans. Good riddance. Only how could she think she was the only one? She couldn’t have known. She wouldn’t allow her baby sister to visit that house if she had known - but what could she have done even if she did know?
Have mercy she thought she had healed, she thought she had forgiven him. Except she hadn’t known about the others. She hadn’t known that it wasn’t just her. She hadn’t known that it was her mother, her brother, both her sisters and now - that forsaken bastard could hardly be thought to be anywhere but the drudges of hell - both her nieces. That incorrigible pervert that had so sweetly swooned her grandmother nearly 100 year ago was most certainly not going to be remembered in her home.
The scattered pieces of her only photo of her grandfather and her daughter was swept up and tossed into the trash, to be taken out in a moment so the trash truck could pick it up tomorrow morning.
She had found their wedding license. Her grandmother, in her perfectly neat script, had written “Today, I married my sweetheart” on the back of it. Had she known? Had she known her sweetheart husband was a monster that preyed on his own children and grandchildren? How could she not? With an overwhelming sadness she realized that there was a good chance her grandmother had not escaped to her deathbed unscathed by the demon she shared a bed with. But thank God her own children had never, not once, been alone in a room with him. He had only lived long enough to share the Earth with her oldest, and they had visited just the one time, when the ruined photo had been taken.
No, she really never had forgiven him. She had done some healing, she had finally told her husband, her in-laws and her family. The first of whom had been her rock, her pillar and strength. Two others had called her a liar, despite one having most assuredly gone through the same torture by the same man, and most of her family breaking down to come out with the truth - a real family affair. Skeletons piled in the closet to be sure.
Except a man couldn’t just become like that. He didn’t just wake up one day and decide to rape his daughter. No, just like good men are built with time and energy, so he too must have been molded. Shivers ran down the woman’s spine. What was his father like? To create a man so deranged as to do the things he did to children - his own children whom he was supposed to protect - what did he suffer through?
It didn’t matter, his past did not make his actions excusable. Maybe easier to understand, to fathom, to wrap her broken heart around - but never excusable. He had been raised by demons and would have gone home to the enemy himself. Sins were passed down through the generations and the children truly paid for them. The woman crumpled onto the floor and cried tears she thought she was done crying. She cried for herself, for her family, and for the childhood she never had - none of them ever had. Heaven help her, she would heal.
