It all started the day I had started to understand things.

The things I couldn't understand before. No one in my place would have understood it until one of my friends shared it with me.

Talking about friends, I know many of them. But the one I had been relying upon since ever was my Grandmother.

Usually, grandmothers are involved in a story where the lead heroine is an introvert because she can't really open up to other members of her family or outside people. Or the one who lives in a house full of step-brothers and sisters. No one gives her a shi.t but the sweet and humorous grandmother. Or the one who is orphaned and all she has left is her grandmother as the family.

For me, none of the above was my condition. I wasn't an introvert but a lively girl. Meeting people, making new friends, going out, and enjoy life was an elegant kind of casual thing for me. I didn't have step-brothers or sisters. I had a family, a big family with my mom and dad, two brothers and two sisters. But I rarely know them, their age, their liking, and whatever else. I just knew that they existed and how they looked like.

By knowing all of this, you could guess that I wasn't an orphan now. Was I? A big fat no. Yet still I had been living with my grandmother only.

I wasn't thinking about this subject all of a sudden or did it randomly. Just five days ago, I asked my grandmother if I could check the brown wooden box in the attic. Like every mysterious thriller story, she told me to mind my own business and study my days out so I could graduate and live life independently, instead of focusing on old and broken things stuck in that box.

Now that I had a little bit of hint by her torturing dialogue, I was now leaving my room, going up at night to check that box in the attic. I could have done it earlier on the other chances but I didn't have the key to unlock it. By God's grace, I had been a curious girl, checking out all the drawers of granny while she was out watering our little garden. And I found the drawer beside her bed that always used to be locked, unlocked.

And I found the key.

Now that nothing could stop me because Granny's room was at the ground-floor like most cliche stories, she couldn't hear me tiptoeing towards the attic.

Looking at this way too polished, wooden box on which the light of my torch was reflecting, I couldn't wait anymore. Twisting the key, opening the lid-I took a long breath of suspense.

The box didn't have much of a fright but some cute little toys, some photographs of a handsome man from his childhood to his thirties. There was a shirt from the eighties, cleaned and ironed. A magnifying glass, a pair of spectacles- one was broken.

I sat quietly on the floor, my long socks stretching as I crossed my leg and looked at the photos carefully when doubt started to appear in my chest.

This man looked like granny so much.

My jaws clenched as I felt a shiver crossing my spine. With an audible gulp, I checked more pics of this man's teen life. His eyebrows were as rich as of my Grandmother. The smile was the same.

For a girl, who had a beautiful family as I had just told, I wouldn't have really cared about these photographs. But I remembered a joke from three months ago when I was at my classmate, Lexi's home. We were studying and watching movies. In between, my friend's mom told her that they all were going for the vacations and not her because of her upcoming exams.

It was mean but not as much because we truly had exams this last month. But Lexi was in pain. She had quietly nodded and when her mom left she cursed and muttered if she was adopted.

Adopted

For some reason, that word had stuck in my mind.

So much that I had started to look in the mirror, trying to match my features with my father whom I had seen when I was just eight. Now, I was soon to be eighteen and I had just a memory of him that my mom brought me on my twelfth birthday. A photo frame of the family.

I sighed and put the pictures on the floor, thinking if this man whose pictures I found could be my Uncle. Because my dad didn't look this much like my Granny than this man looked. Also that Dad and Granny wouldn't talk for some reason. The last I remember they had a big argument and dad stopped coming here.

Mom had told me that Granny had always been angry with Dad for leaving their ancestral home and going to the village, even on the cost of leaving one of his children with her. This resulted in Dad's absence from my birthdays, the only day my mom would come here in the city with my elder brother, Pete.

I picked out my phone from the pajamas' pocket and opened the gallery. The only photo of my family, I stared at it carefully. Pete, the elder brother of mine had ocean blue eyes like my father and brown hair like Mom. Thomas and Natalie were twins but they barely looked the same now when they grew up.

Thomas had sea-green eyes, mom had told me happily. She felt like it was a mixture of her and Dad's color. While Natalie was an emerald-eyed beauty with raven hair like her twin, though with extra Auburn shade. Her features were the same as of mom because of which mom told me, Dad was fond of her the most.

Eva was no less of beauty with her thick brown eyebrows and Auburn shade of hair which most of the people living there had. Her eyes were as blue as Pete though she was nothing like him. She was a tough one, mom had told me.

I wasn't in the picture but I could tell that I neither had blue eyes like Dad nor greenish like my mother. I had this grey color with yellow flecks in the center that would turn brighter in sunlight. Gran had told me the whole description one day in my childhood. She loved them so much, though I had a thirst to find similarities with my parents.

I found out that I liked apple pies like my mother and was good at Maths like my father. I loved swimming like my Mom and I had this reddish mark on my waist behind that Granny said Dad had it too.

But these photos? Who was this man? Could he be my Uncle? My dead uncle because mom never told me about it. We never would have enough time to talk about others. Because she would always come in the morning and leave at night.

It was unfair that I could meet her only once in a year but it was for the best. Granny loved this ancestral home and didn't want to leave while Dad wanted to go to the village and live his life peacefully away from the noise of the city. Someone had to stay in the city and live with her. It's kind of opposite as families would leave their elders in villages to go to town. Here, it was the other way. Lexi, my neighbor, and classmate often told me, I was privileged to have gotten the chance to study at high-class schools and now soon, University too.

Mom told me that Dad had a problem with the city's culture and cunning people. The world is changing and he didn't want to suffer the busy town anymore. He needed peace and a beautiful family. But again, someone had to stay with the old woman. My elder siblings, Pete and Eva didn't want to stay away from their parents and Granny loved me the most. So, they left me to fulfill her loneliness.

They didn't have high-class education and love of their Grandmother. The mysterious stories of angels and demons, the notorious romance moments of her and Grandpa.

But they had something I could never think I would get.

The feel of having a proper family.

Pete never really talked to me much. He would come and leave to roam through society. But he had told me once that I was the luckiest of all siblings.

Of course, he said that to keep my heart stable. So, I wouldn't believe in the doubt I had since I got the maturity. So, I couldn't think by a single chance that they had forgotten about me and would only treat me as a burden that they got no time for but a day in a year. So, I couldn't think that I was clearly a child, adopted to take care of granny.

But I believed it now.

I could understand it all clearly but not enough to understand

If I was truly kept away from them to remove Granny's loneliness only.

_______

"So, you think that you are adopted?"

I nodded at Lexi, gritting my teeth at her as she still won't understand that Granny was in another room and could hear us.

"Sorry," she muttered while shifting on the bed comfortably while I kept staring at her, waiting for her approval of my belief. "So," she thankfully whispered this time.

She looked at the photographs in front of her. "This could be your uncle," she sighed. "Misty, honestly. He looks like your granny but you yourself have told me that your family loves you so much. I mean the gifts, they are always so good and heart full."

"It's always Mom and Pete." I reminded her, in a whisper. "None of them calls me. Mom gives this shitty excuse that the network doesn't work there. I mean, we have seen how villages are. Do you remember the trip from sixth grade? There are phones there and windmills and towers. Where are they leaving? Some ancient realm?"

Lexi broke into a goofy chuckle but a serious frown took over her when she thought about it.

"Why do you think you are adopted? You are white. They are white. Just because they stay far away from you? They do and that's a big deal, leaving a child of your own away." She calculated, sighing. "But then, the reason is genuine. Your Granny loves this city, the house. Someone had to stay with her since, she didn't want to leave and couldn't live here alone. And it was you because Thomas and Natalie weren't born. You were the youngest so she chose you. There have been many cases like these. I remember how my uncle gave his second son to his distant cousin because she couldn't be pregnant ever in her life. Wasn't that kind of them? Your parents have done the same."

"The best thing is they still call you their own. Come for you, every year. My Uncle and Aunt now don't even treat the son they gave away like their son. He is just someone else for him. Nothing much. So, Misty, you are getting more than normal." She smiled.

I closed my eyes, remembering all these years. All the festivals, the outings, the parent-teacher meets, my dance performances-it was always granny. Whenever I had gotten sick, she would take care of me. When she had gotten sick, I had been there for her. This was our little world.

"Did you ask your granny about it? The photo," Lexi laid on her side and gave me a serious look.

"I don't know. I asked her about the box. She was so shocked, she warned me not to go to the attic. You know, the box was hidden. But I was looking for this old project we did. And within the cupboards, I found the box."

Lexi nodded and looked away. "Maybe, he is your dead uncle and no one else. Because of her love for your uncle and Grandpa, Granny never wanted to leave this home."

I was about to roll my eyes at everything she was repeating and not really helping with my frustrations, when all of a sudden she realized, "But have you ever noticed your mother? She looks so conservative and collected in front of your grandmother. Do you remember, we had noticed the tension last year."

I recalled the little awkwardness that came with dinner. "Gran was rude to Pete for some reason."

Lexi jumped up. "Right. That handsome brother of yours, he was quiet but Gran looked pissed off. I think that it isn't your dad Granny is angry with. It's your mother that Gran doesn't like and that's why the siblings too."

I nodded, but still this didn't solve anything. "The photos. I mean, Dad and Mom don't look broke. They have cars and wear such heavy coats that could be so expensive. They bring me expensive gifts-"

"Your necklace," Lexi reminded with a sweet smile.

I sighed. "Yes. They can easily afford more outings but they only come once. There is so much gap between them and me. I think I am adopted, man." I laid back on the bean bag, staring up at the ceiling. "I don't know. I just feel it, regardless of these photos."

Lexi crawled on the bed. "Hey, don't overthink it. Your birthday's this month. If you want, you can ask your mom about it, directly."

Tears formed in my eye. "We read so many poems. We watch so many movies. I see mothers with their children. I myself think of being a mother to my children. I would never keep my child away from me, Lexi." A tear slipped from the corner of my eye. "I would never. I don't understand how mom does it."

Lexi made an attempt at a joke. "Having so many kids, doesn't give her much time to think that way for you, maybe. Misty, you need to chill out."

Remembering all the blank faces, mom and Pete had given me whenever I asked them about Dad. "I made so many drawings and greeting cards for Dad. Of father's day, of his birthday, of Christmas-no replies came. All that came were the expensive gifts to keep me distracted."

Another tear slipped. "I have no memory of vacations and festivals. I have no words of wisdom from my Dad. No words of appreciation whenever I'd told Mom to tell my father about my prizes and achievements. Doesn't he get happy to hear about that? Does he even care about me as he does for other children?"

Lexi got up slowly from the bed and hung out her legs, bending in front of me. "Hey, Misty. Dude, you look way too sad. This isn't you. You never really cared about your family that much-" her face changed at my sudden glare. "You do. But not in that way. Gran in everything. What else do you need? She is cool. You could have boyfriends, roam cities, go to the clubs. She never denies you anything."

I shook my head getting up from the bean bag. "Ryan always scares off the guys who tease you, Lexi. He is such a good brother to you. He takes care of you." I muttered, counting all the things. "You talk to your mom when you are hesitating about anything. I didn't even get to clear my doubts or celebrate with Mom when I got periods for the first time. Your Dad calls you princess. My dad doesn't even give a text message. Do you get that? The privilege that I am missing. Having a family, Lexi."

She gulped, getting up to stare at the tears in my eyes. "Oh my God, Misty." She said softly, her eyes warming up as she came and gave me a hug. "I get it. I get it. You don't have to be worried about it. Don't you remember? Whenever you need my Dad for any formalities, he will always be there. You can always come to my home and have family time. Just like we do during Christmas. I could have said the same about brother bonding with Ryan but he has this huge crush on you."

She chuckled when a smile formed on my lips and a huge blush corrupted my cheeks. Wiping my eyes, she looked at me softly.

"It's their loss if their lives don't revolve around you, Misty. You are a fun girl, jolly and sweet. So beautiful. So much talented," she chirped, tickling me as I rolled my eyes.

"Looks like someone is my fan."

"These are Ryan's words. Man, he is mad in love with you. He keeps his window open just for your sake and you never open it," she giggled. "Mom knows and we both tease him a lot. But if he gets to know, you are sad. He is going to be so rude to Pete on your birthday."

My eyes lit up immediately. "Not a bad idea, Lexi."

"What about these photos?" She asked while cleaning up the floor where I had left the photos.

I sighed. "Leave it on me."

______

"What do you think?"

Please vote and comment if you like it.