WIP Excerpt
(WIP excerpt. ©Robin D. Ashe 2017) After my grandfather’s death, I took the stepladder from its place on the garage wall. Up in the rafters, I found old bottles with dead flower bouquets and a wooden box. I took everything, replaced the ladder, and swept away my footprints in the pea stones. My grandmother was still alive, and my aunt might take anything out of the house or any other building on the property. It was a rough handmade box, like something my grandfather carved before he became an apprentice woodworker. There were newspaper clippings, photos, and a postcard. A woman stood at what seemed to be the edge of a cliff, with little boys surrounding her knees. Someone had written Morton in shaky pencil over one dark-haired boy's head. I touched the name. Most heartbreaking, someone had scratched out the face of my great-grandmother, probably, I thought, my great-grandfather’s second wife, af...