Present Day
Molly Evans-Henry hadn't confronted the attic since her mother had passed nearly four years ago. It wasn't that she was afraid of what was up there; she was almost fifty years old and was hardly frightened by the dark anymore. Rather, she scared of what emotions would be reawakened in her through the action of pulling out those dusty boxes. Molly had finally repressed those feelings and wished not to have them return. However, Freda had called earlier in the week requesting access to the boxes in the attic, and, not raised to be rude, Molly felt obligated to comply. After all, Auntie Freda was her mother's closest friend, had been there for Molly's family for years, so it was only fair to at least try and fulfill her request.
She grabbed the string hanging from the ceiling and pulled, revealing a foldable wooden ladder that led up to the recesses of the uppermost room of her home. She thought briefly about whether or not she could lie to Auntie Freda and say the boxes had been lost, or that her brother still had them, but she steeled herself and began her ascent up the rungs.
The attic was hot, dark, dusty and in need of a good cleaning, but instantly Molly found what she came for: six dust-blanketed boxes all with 'Alice Duncan Evans' emblazoned on the tops in black marker in her mother's hand. Molly grabbed one and left the attic, keeping the ceiling trap open in case this box contained nothing she thought Auntie Freda would need and she'd be forced to uncover the rest of them.
Molly placed the box on the floor of her upstairs hallway and plopped down beside it. Auntie Freda had said that she only needed a few pictures and could root through the boxes herself, but Molly knew her aunt was getting on in age and couldn't possibly be found sitting on a floor about to tear into her mother's preserved memories like she was now. The thought made her chuckle slightly, but then the gravity of the thing she was about to do once again weighed heavily on her heart. Yes, it had been almost five years since Alice had died, but Molly still felt the absence of her mother greatly. Just talking about her made tears spring to her eyes. Had Alice been around she would have jokingly scolded Molly for crying, stating that Evans blood most certainly ran through her as, "Mr and Mrs. Evans always cried," even if they just saw an adorable infant being pushed along in a pram.
Deducing that she was being childish, Molly swallowed back some sadness, steeled herself, and pried open the box. Inside, she found some old magazines boasting cover images of celebrities from long ago, a few photo albums, some records, Alice's wedding photo in a delicate silver frame, a small box that contained some of the little presents her father had given her mother and, finally, a book that Molly had never seen before. It was of cracked, faded brown tooled leather, and was incredibly thick. She flicked through some pages and discovered them all to be handwritten, the dates heading the pages harking back to the sixties, and a tad worn. She realized in her hands she held her mother's old diary, and tears once again threatened to flow. This was what she had wanted to avoid.
Molly quickly shut the journal and practically threw it back into the box. However, a thought intruded her subconscious when she held the book; she wanted to read it, and badly. Insatiable curiosity had always 'plagued' her since she was a child, and this newfound discovery did nothing to squelch that trait. It would be a posthumous invasion of her mother's privacy, she'd decided, reading that diary and learning things about Alice that she perhaps wished to keep a secret.
…But what if she was meant to find it? And, really, what kind of trouble could her mother have gotten into? She was a traveling secretary and personal assistant for one Mr. B. Epstein, for God's sake! Molly stuck her hand back in the box again, groping around for the diary once more. Instead, she pulled out a piece of paper that was in the way of her getting the book. However, a piece of paper it was not, but a picture, and upon further inspection Molly recognized her mother, a blushing beauty of perhaps eighteen, sitting on the lap of a young George Harrison, the rest of the Beatles surrounding her! Molly flipped the picture around and read the inscription on the back: 'To our lovely Alice Duncan, without whom we'd all be lost,' and then in a smaller, more scribbly hand, "…or dead, luv John."
Molly plunged her hand back into the box and uncovered the diary once more, curiosity and questions overcoming her sadness and reservation. How did her mother become so close with the Beatles, of all people? What exactly was her occupation in the sixties? Sensing there was much more to her mother than met the eye, Molly cracked open the book and began to read…