Oh, good, Evander had decided to join them once again. Not that Alfred had expected him any sooner, really. He had no reason to believe, based on his experience with his brother during their father's funeral, that Evander was any good at all dealing with death or grief. Presumably he must have improved a little in the intervening years, having had more practice at it when Evelina, their mother, and supposedly Alfred himself had all died, but since Alfred hadn't actually been there to witness any of it he wasn't planning to make any wagers on Evander's coping skills.

"You don't remember her at all?" Alfred asked, attention drawn back to Charity by this latest revelation. Everything that had happened in England while he had been shipwrecked existed, in his mind, at essentially the same point in time; he had no concept whatsoever of when Charity had been born or exactly when Evelina had died, only that both had happened while he was gone. This was news that made his chest ache: he'd loved his sister, and he'd loved his mother, and he expected that Evelina would have been a good mother. Charity had missed out not only on knowing Evelina as a mother but also as a person, which was to say nothing of how difficult it must have been to grow up without a mother in general.

"Do you have Mum's old pictures?" he asked Evander suddenly. "From when we were kids?" He supposed Evander must have them since it was unlikely they would have been discarded when the house was cleared out after her death, but it had never occurred to him to ask before.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

“I know,” Evander murmured to Charity, hoping she would feel no obligation to ask if it only redoubled the feeling of an old loss. “1883, Alfred,” he said more quietly, over Charity’s head. “She was only two.” It took him a moment to remember: he knew Charity better now than he had, then, when her father had moved away with her and the Lloyd family had seen much more of her.

He had been lost in the past until his brother’s next question, and his gaze snapped back up. “Of course,” he said, in some surprise. “I can...” He trailed off, not bothering to ask. Though he was not much used to getting them out to reminisce - what, by himself in the house, as if he needed to be more depressed? - Evander was nothing if not an organised hoarder, and so it only took a few paces across the room and kneeling down to the bottom shelf of one of the bookcases to locate the box of old family things. The bottom shelf was not much prided - as evidenced by Alfred’s dreaded memoir also lurking on that row - but he shifted the box out easily and set it down onto the coffee table, all the same.

And everything inside - primarily photographs - was still in as pristine condition as when it had fallen into his hands, neatly labelled and carefully grouped by year or subject; as Evander had expected, because he had sorted them himself. Sorted everything, really, in the old family home, and even opening the lid on this stupid box had struck him in the chest more fiercely than he had wanted it to. Silently, he pushed it over to Alfred to look through.

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The following 2 users Like Evander Darrow's post:2 users Like Evander Darrow's post
   Charity Lloyd, J. Alfred Darrow

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She had been only two. It didn't make sense for her to have memories of Mama, did it? She'd been so young, and yet... it was like she could remember her laugh, the way her palm had brushed across the top of her head. Was it possible that those were made-up memories—and if so, did that mean there were no traces of her mother left in her mind? The thought terrified Charity, but she didn't vocalize it. She didn't want affirmation that everything she remembered was... fake.

Charity waited in anticipation as Uncle Evander went to fetch her Mum's pictures. Charity had seen pictures before, mostly in her Papa's home when she was younger. Her favorite had been the portrait of her mother that had been painted shortly after her marriage to Papa; her mother was barely grown herself, with hazel eyes, a her mousy nose, and a soft, rounded face that was recognizably Charity's. She'd gotten her ginger hair from her Papa, but her mother - she'd been the prettiest woman. Her blonde hair was shiny and soft, and Charity could tell just by looking at the portrait. She wondered who'd got a hold of it once Papa died.

She waited in her seat, glancing between both of her uncles. What sort of pictures were inside?

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Only two. Of course she wouldn't know anything about Evelina, then, but the logic of it did nothing to reduce that feeling of secondhand loss that had welled up in him. But it wasn't too late for her to know her mother, while he and Evander were still here and there was a box of photographs on the table. No one was ever fully gone, so long as some of their stories remained behind them. That was a belief that he'd inherited from the tribe, in South America, but one that he'd held on to fiercely ever since. That was why he'd gotten the tattoos, all across his chest. They were like pictures for a society that didn't have cameras and dark rooms — marks of what he'd been through. They didn't bury people, in the wilderness where he'd lived with Pablo. The ground was too wet and soft to keep the bodies away from animals, so instead they burned their dead. Before they did, though, they all gathered and told the stories. An elder or a loved one would 'read' the tattoos, which encompassed the whole life story of the person who had died. It wasn't uncommon for those close to the deceased to have bits of the stories incorporated into their own tattoos, so that the story stayed alive even after the body had been burned.

When he'd first heard about this custom, it had been easy to dismiss it as quaint and exotic but ultimately incorrect. He had still been very English, then, and not eager to change his mind about things he'd grown up believing. After he'd actually seen it in action, though, participating in one of the funerals for a few men killed by a competing tribe, he'd understood the power of it. He'd known that no matter what else happened, he didn't want to die a mystery to those around him; he wanted his stories told, too. The next day, he'd gotten his first tattoo. His tattoos were more than marks, though so few people understood that here. They were his whole life, his whole person; they were him.

This box, these photos, these were Evelina. He felt a sense of trepidation as Evander pushed the box across to him. There was a weight to this; it was important. This was the narrative, this was what would live on, and it was a huge responsibility, to get it right. He didn't know that he was ready for that kind of responsibility, but these stories had gone untold for far too long already; it wasn't fair to his sister to put it off any longer.

"Sit down," he told Evander, then moved closer to Charity so that he could put one arm over her shoulders before he turned his attention to the box. He took a deep breath, and internally apologized to Evelina for anything he might forget. He pulled one of the stacks out, then spread them over the table in front of them. He smiled at an early picture of the three of them: Evander sitting very still and looking vaguely disappointed, Evelina smiling brightly and showing off a gap where a tooth was missing, and Alfred distracted with a toy that someone had probably handed him to entice him to sit still for the photo in the first place. Then he began, telling his sister's stories, and doing his best to bring her to life for Charity's benefit.

The following 2 users Like J. Alfred Darrow's post:2 users Like J. Alfred Darrow's post
   Charity Lloyd, Elias Grimstone

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER