[2] The Man In The Photo

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After exams, I had these summer vacations. Soon, I'd be filling forms for various Universities and colleges. I had a business school in mind just like Dad.

Gran told me that he liked to paint. We both had our talents as I too liked singing. I wished I could learn painting from him someday because within one day nothing could happen. That even when he wouldn't come on that one day too.

From the last day, since Lexi left, I had been continuously thinking of ways to ask Granny about those pics of the man. But I couldn't collect the courage. I was genuinely afraid of what secret would be revealed and my heart could break. Also that Granny could get angry at me too.

Rose Brown, my dear old lady was as healthy as a woman in her forties. But now, even being Sixty-nine, she was the life of this home. She would do gardening, laundry, cook food for both of us, and whatnot. Yeah, go to church. She wasn't religious much but she used to say one thing.

A house that didn't involve worshipping that power residing in the Universe, could become a ghost house. It was necessary to fill our hearts with faith and religion.

Now, having no elder but her, it was her duty even when she was too cool to be all religious.

"Hey, what are you thinking? Some new crush?" Rose, being her casual self, cutting some veggies while I was going through some magazine, trying to think of a way to start the real conversation. Her white hair was combed neatly, reaching her shoulders.

Grey eyes mixed with the green and yellow of dull eye-sight, still bright as ever.

"No," my goofy smile erupting at the thought of Ryan, the boy-next-door and best friend's brother. "Just thinking about the box in the attic."

The knife clanked on the cutter box while all the movements stopped. I could feel a heated gaze on my forehead, ready to be burned by her. "You opened it?"

"How would I open it?" I said, shrugging my shoulders, watching her glare relaxing and she was about to pick that knife. "Without the key. So, I stole it from your drawer."

Her eyes widened at me, almost a heart-attack coming for her. She gasped. "You, daughter of the devil."

I screamed, getting up from the chair, running around the kitchen island as she followed with that knife in her hand. "Gran, I only wanted to see what was inside. I was curious." I laughed, at her shocked face.

"I told you to not," she said, breathing harshly, still trying to catch me.

I stopped and surrendered, "Okay, stop. You'll lose your knee from running. Stop."

The blood drained from her face and she stopped, breathing hard.

"I just wanted to know. The box looked full of secrets." I said, innocently. "You would never hide something from me. I was dying to know that box."

She stared at me with blankness in her eyes and then, a pity came all over. She put the knife away, coming to me, as I held out her hands and made her sit on the very chair I was sitting at.

I walked towards the jug and picked a glass from nearby, filling it up for her.

"What did you find?" She asked while taking the glass from me. I took the nearby chair and shifted it close to hers, looking at her in suspense.

Reaching for my pocket, I gulped and made a silent prayer that everything would be fine. Bringing out the photo of the man, I pushed it in front of her.

I had thought, her eyes would pop out but instead, she gave a tired sigh. The Grandma who would always be the reason behind my smile started to take breaths so she won't cry in front of me.

"Gran," I reached for her hand, now all jokes vanished and her emotions around us. "Who is he?"

With teary eyes, she caressed the black-n-white photograph of the man in his twenties. He had a baseball cap on and the bat too in his hand.

"My son."

I sighed in relief, now believing in Lexi's words. "Oh! That's it. It isn't that of a secret. What's my Uncle's name, then? Is he alive?" I asked jokingly, trying to cheer her up as she kept staring at the photograph.

"Did you find his toys and shirt?"

I nodded. "I did." My mood went low with her sudden sob.

"He is my dead son." My heart crushed with new pain. I shouldn't have opened her box of bad memories. It was so weird knowing all this new thing from her when she and I had always been so close to each other.

A new dimension had opened.

"He's dead?" I asked slowly. My eyes searching for hers. "H-How?" What happened?"

Her eyes moved up, over mine and a shiver ran down my spine with the kind of secret she had filled in them. "Do you have the courage, Misty?"

"What?" I whispered out, absentmindedly.

"He was killed," she said, closing her eyes and covering her mouth as another sob erupted. "He was murdered, in front of my eyes," she wrenched out.

I gasped, my eyes filling up immediately. "Oh my God," I murmured in shock, now regretting opening that box. I was an idiot.

"You want to know who this man is, Misty. Why did I hide him away in that box? He is someone you weren't supposed to know," Gran cried while squeezing my hand. A smile coming on her face through the tears.

"He's Andrew. My lovely son. My brilliant boy. I am as proud of him as I was years ago." She smiled through her sobs.

"Who killed him, Gran?" I gulped, asking shakily.

Her smile faded and she wiped her tears. Her gaze went to the window of the kitchen, eyes zooming into a memory she was afraid to share. But she seemed furious all of a sudden.

"Your so-called father."

______

The box opened with a Chinese cat's cry, and Gran didn't wait to burst out in tears again at the sight of more photographs.

"My son," she took out the checkered shirt, sobbing to herself. "Andrew, baby."

My shaky hands reached for the one photograph where he had an infant wrapped in white cloth in his arms. I couldn't see my face, but I knew it was me.

"He was my father," I said out loud, shakily. A tear escaping my eye as I remembered our conversation, moments ago.

"Your so-called father."

I had laughed humorlessly. "What have you poured in, Granny? This isn't a joke."

She stared at me blankly. "The man your mother is married to is the murderer of my son. Of your father."

"What do you mean?" I was frozen.

She gulped and looked at me without blinking. "Your mother has married that murderer already. When they had a marital argument, she left the village of those demons and ran away to this city. That's when the bitch met my son. Lured him into love. I still remember how crazy he was for her. He brought her home for dinners. We didn't know anything about her."

Before I could ask anything more, my heart filled from the fears I had shared with Lexi's. I was overwhelmed with the pain I had thought I could get if my thoughts would become real. And they did.

Gran nodded with a sad smile on her face, her nose running and she sniffled. "He was your biological, true father. He loved you so much, Misty."

I stared at the photo in my hands, at the same time the memory of my eighth birthday when Mom came. "Who is that man, then? Pete's father. Mom's first husband?" My voice broke.

Gran nodded. "He is the killer of your true father. Your mother married Andrew, stayed with us for a year. Then, you came. None of us knew that a disaster was coming. A storm. Then, that monster came," she sobbed. "That fucking-Gilbert."

Gran never cursed in front of me. She was highly filled with hatred and I was stunned. Because if I used to close my eyes and think of a man I called father. It was Mr. Gilbert Brown.

Gran's eyes lowered over the photographs. "Andrew had loved your mother more than anyone. He didn't know what this woman was capable of. How could a woman play with Someone's feelings like that? She had no fear of giving birth to you when she had a monster-like husband already, that fucking-Gilbert. That son of a bitch, for real."

I gulped, my eyes filling up with fresh tears. "He found her after a search for two years. He found our little family. Imagine his blood boiling at the sight of Andrew holding you. You smell like mixed scents of your mother and Andrew. Gilbert was a true monster."

My eyebrows furrowed as I waited for her to talk about a knife, or beatings or gun. Anything that seemed realistic. But what she said had me losing my mind.

"He ripped my Andrew's throat with his sharp claws." She sobbed wildly. "Ripped his chest, bit chunks of meat from my son," Gran screamed in pain. "He didn't stop even after Andrew had left us."

Tears slipped from my eyes at her cries but I couldn't believe my ears.

"What are you saying, Gran? What are you talking about?" My voice shook in sadness. "Claws? Ripping?"

Gran's sobs silenced. Her eyes widened and her hand reached her mouth. "Oh God! I shouldn't have let you know this. I can't scar you," she started talking to herself, collecting all the photos, throwing them into the box.

"Gran?" I stared at her in shock. "Gran?"

She shook her head, kept mumbling to herself things I couldn't understand except for calling my mother a bitch, continuously.

I crawled on the floor and reached her, shaking her shoulders for attention. "Gran?" I scolded her. "Listen to me. Gran. Calm down. What would scare me?"

She stopped moving, her wrinkled skin looking all pale. I put my hand under her chin, making her look in my eyes.

"You are the only true family, I believe I have now." My eyes filled with fresh tears. "Tell me everything. Please."

She blinked, her nose flaring as she slowly put her hand on my cheek, bringing me close to her chest as she sobbed heartily while kissing my head.

_______

Staring at the ceiling, I could hear Granny's loud snores. I wouldn't have chosen to sleep with her since she coughed a lot and I felt disgusted sometimes, afraid she would cough on my face in sleep.

But tonight, we were reminded of the fact that we had only each other in this world. Especially me, who offered herself to sleep together since the things she told weren't settling in my mind.

I was disturbed.

Looking sideways at now her sleeping face, she was calm. But I wasn't. She had known the truth from eighteen years while I just came to know now.

"Tell me everything. Please."

Gran gulped after crying her heart out. I wiped my own eyes and pulled away from her as she held my hand. "Promise me, that you'll believe me."

"I believe none fuckers in this world but you, Gran," I said, getting angry at my mother whom I truly loved so much.

She nodded. "Do you remember the fairy tales I used to sing at night when you're little?"

I nodded as she smiled sadly. I told her, "You used to say in the end, that fairy tales aren't real. Like every Grandmother, you won't promise me that there is magic and are fairies in this world. But yes, prince charming does come for women who are loyal and kind."

I nodded. Gran sighed, slowly. "Fairies aren't real, Misty. But demons are. Predators are there in our lives, that lurk beneath the shadows. The evil monsters that reside in the dark forests." She squeezed my hand and breathed silently. "Your mother is one of them."

I thought it was a metaphor. That she was just calling my mom, a monster in hatred. I didn't know she was about to say. . .

"Your mother is a Werewolf."

I shifted on my side, clenching my thighs as shivers passed again through my spine. I had laughed maniacally at her for fucking with my mind. But her blank expressions had scared me enough to believe in her words.

Even with the blanket, I could feel cold with these dark secrets. I would keep closing my eyes, shaking my head but this wasn't stopping.

The dread of knowing the truth.

I didn't just get to know that I had a different father, that Pete, Eva, Thomas, and Natalie were my half brothers and sisters.

I got to know worse than that.

Something terrifying.

_______

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