Memories

The attic was warm and dry despite the rain pelting against the little glass panes captured in the wooden, latticed window frames.

Glancing away from the windows, Evelyn sighed. She was surrounded by clutter – everywhere she looked were things. Nearly eighty years of dust-covered possessions filled the attic from floor to ceiling. It was hard enough, knowing that Nanna was gone forever, but facing this… it was a bit overwhelming.

Feeling a sense of camaraderie with the storm outside, her own emotions in turmoil, Evelyn crossed to the nearest piece of furniture. It was an ancient writing desk, deep mahogany wood, lovingly polished underneath the thick layer of dust. She grimaced at the filth on her hand from opening the desk up, then sneezed as the cloud of dust reached her nose.

Running her hands along the fronts of the little pigeonholes inside the desk, she pulled out a leather-bound journal of some sort, and carried it across to a thickly padded love seat. Sitting gingerly down – and waiting for the waft of dust caused by her actions to settle – she opened the journal at a random page. Snaky writing wavered across the pages, the inconsistent colouring of the words making her realise that the journal had been written with quill and ink.

“Wow!” she thought, feeling a sense of nostalgia wash over her as she considered how old it must be.

The pages were yellowed with age, and Evelyn carefully turned back to the beginning, trying to make out the words. It was a journal, a diary, recording the everyday events of life, back when Nanna had been a teenager. Even sixty or seventy years after this had been written, Evelyn could hear her Nanna’s voice in the words on the page.

More than an hour passed in soft contemplation of the words in the journal as they created a rich canvas of life as it had been, so very long ago. Nanna had been sixteen when she’d written this, going to dances at the local church, meeting handsome young men, lovingly describing her gowns.

Evelyn had long since toed off her shoes and pulled her legs up beneath her, getting comfortable on the love seat as she immersed herself in a world that had faded long ago, war and technology running rampantly across the countryside and taking away the weekly dances – and the young men – from young girls like Nanna.

The next turn of the page brought Evelyn to the middle of the journal, and she gasped as something slid out onto her knee. Her first thoughts were of a spider or some other creepy-crawly, but she quickly realised it was a flower. A pressed flower. The yellow colouring of the flower was still glowing warmly, the petals flattened but holding their shape. Evelyn lifted it carefully from her lap and held it up. It was a marigold.

There were words on the page. “Arthur gave me this flower at the end of the dance. He said its cheerful colouring reminded him of my cheerful outlook on life. I shall keep it forever.”

Evelyn felt a tear roll down her cheek. Arthur was the name of her grandfather. He’d died some fifteen years ago, leaving Nanna devastated. And here, in the attic, was a flower that he’d gifted Nanna when she’d been sixteen, and she had kept it forever. She’d kept it for her whole life.

Lifting her eyes, Evelyn gazed out the window, watching the raindrops running down the panes of glass as memories of Nanna and Grandpa – their laughter, their love, their hugs, their welcome – swamped her mind. They’d been so happy together, and Evelyn had always been a part of their world. She’d spent her summers here with them, playing in the woods and helping in the garden, eating snacks on the stool in the kitchen, sitting around the fire in the evening playing board games. Nanna and Grandpa had always been so happy together, lots of small touches, smiles, kindly words.

She was still holding the flower in her hands, and now she carefully placed it back inside the journal, slowly closing it, capturing the precious token of their love. Taking a deep breath, Evelyn vowed to keep the marigold all the days of her life, too.