* * *
An hour into my search, legs numb from sitting on the floor, I come up for air, taking in the chaos fanned out around me. Photos from Edward’s school days, university, weekends and holidays. Friends, partners, family members I do not recognize and a precious few I do. Hugs, kisses, alcohol-rogued cheeks and practical jokes. Wet hair, Bermuda shorts and suntan-lotion-smeared books I didn’t even know he’d read. Snapshots of Edward’s life lie all around me. I try not to focus on the other girls. The fresh-faced women he has known and loved. I try not to judge myself against a poem written to him on the back of a postcard.
I try to have eyes only for Bobby. But I cannot find him among the old letters, gap-year trinkets and report cards.
I stand to better take it all in, the relics of Edwards life so far. Bobby is not here.
It’s only natural that he wouldn’t be, I suppose. That he’d keep Bobby in a separate place. I do not keep the soft-focus ’90s disposable camera shots of my own long-dead parents with the other memories of my life. I lock them away, so that I can only see them if I make a conscious effort to see them. No surprises. It’s easier that way.
If my own experience is anything to go by, then Edward’s photos of Bobby will be somewhere else, somewhere safe, possibly somewhere locked.
I jiggle life back into my legs and head out to Edward’s home office. His is larger than mine and rigged to the gills with cutting-edge computer tech, hard drives and multiple screens. The similarities between the studies of father and son suddenly hit me.
I slip past the double-banked screens and head to the wooden filing cabinet next to Edward’s desk, but fifteen tiny drawers later I am none the wiser. Invoices, statements, correspondence, but no personal items. I turn back to his desk and try the drawers. Nothing.
I let my eyes scan the room; bookshelves, hard drives, paperwork. On the bookshelves across the room, I find a row of dog-eared old coding books bookended by a small lockable steel storage box. My eye snags on the box. I remember noticing it before. Something so analogue in a room so full of new tech.
I head over and gently lift the dark grey metal box from its resting place. It’s heavier than I expect. Full. There is no helpful key slotted in the lock, but looking at the rudimentary design I know I can open it. My aunt used to keep my maintenance allowance in a similar steel petty cash box in the short time I lived with her after the accident. It took me a while to pluck up the courage, to get the knack, but back then days rolled into each other with nothing but reminders of what was gone. I had time.
These boxes can be opened with a paperclip, nothing more technical than that. It’s a wonder that the companies that make them are still in business given the – I’d imagine – widespread knowledge of that fact.
I slip a small metal paperclip off one of the documents on Edward’s desk and take the box into the sitting room, placing it on the couch while I straighten out one side of the clip, leaving the other end still hooked. Then I crick my neck, lift the box onto my knees, and set about revisiting the magic touch I had at age eleven.
There is the satisfying slide of the simple wafer lock and, just like that, the small catch releases. The people who buy these things must know they offer no protection. I think of Edward and I can only assume he must be aware of the box’s flimsy nature. I suppose they offer more of an honesty system than anything else; the person who uses one is telling other people that they’d prefer you not to look inside.
I flip the lid. Inside is a thick stack of photographs. Jackpot.
The first is a shot of the Holbeck children, arm in arm, grinning broadly. Bobby and Edward in their teens; Matilda, Oliver and Stuart younger. They look so happy and it occurs to me that in spite of having an incredibly strange upbringing, at least they had each other. For a while, anyway.
The photo beneath is of a girl I do not know, her dark, wild curly hair as showstopping as her unselfconscious smile. I’ve never seen her before, but she’s beautiful. One of Edward’s undocumented ex-girlfriends no doubt, or a crush. I feel a sharp twang of jealousy at the idea of him keeping this photo under lock and key. But I know I have similar pictures hidden in my still unpacked boxes.