Traces

09-21-15 Monday: prompt "Children"

Summary: In all honesty, the orphanage did not look much different from the last time he was there.

Word Count: 2178

Thank you for stopping by to my contribution of 'Angst Week'. The angst genre is difficult to categorize since every person reacts to sorrow/pain differently. So I'm certainly not going to attempt to make you cry; I'm just going to follow where the characters and prompts lead me!

…

...

Oliver Davis was in a rented car in the middle of nowhere.

He was not driving. He had been doing enough of that this past week since there was no airport within a reasonable distance. He was simply sitting in the parked car in front of a large brick building.

He wondered what had led Martin and Luella to this place in particular.

He got out of the car, and was still standing next to it when someone came out of the building.

The man was around his age and built like a boxer – heavyset but not fat.

"Are you lost, sir?" the man asked Oliver.

Oliver shook his head. "I lived here as a child for a period."

"Have you come back to reminisce?"

"Does that happen often?"

"Depends on how sentimental the person is and the era they lived here originally. The longer ago, the less likely they'll come back," the man said. He offered a hand. "I'm Rob, one of the house parents here."

"Oliver," he said, and shook Rob's hand. Oliver wasn't sentimental, so why was he here? "Do you mind if I look around?"

"Be our guest. Most of the kids are in school right now. When were you last here?"

"Almost twenty years ago," Oliver said.

Rob looked him up and down with a slow nod. "Then you'll notice some things have changed. Most of the kids live in the cottages out back. The main building here is for recreational and meals. No kids are housed there."

"I noticed it's not called an orphanage anymore," Oliver said. The sign had said Green County Children's Home.

"That happened around fifteen years ago. It gives us more leeway with what children we take in. Plus, no one wants to be associated with the title of orphanage. It still brings to mind Oliver Twist." As soon as the words were out of Rob's mouth, he was apologizing. "I'm sorry; you've probably heard that joke a lot."

"Surprisingly, not really," Oliver said. "When we were in the orphanage, we had initials."

They should have been old enough to have known their names. Oliver was not quite sure what had happened. Eugene had believed they had decided to forget them when they had shed their old life, and the initials become an interim until Martin and Luella came into their lives.

They entered the building and ceased the uncomfortable conversation. Oliver remembered the large oak door with the small brass cross in the middle. The floors were polished hardwood, and the foyer had a large line of cubby holes along one wall, presumably for shoes and any small belongings the children brought in with them. Each nook had a name above it. When they had lived there, there were no name plates. The children had come and gone too quickly for that.

The foyer had originally been a small office and greeting area for guests, and had a window that had a good view of the road that Eugene had liked to sit by even though it was the one room the children had been told not to spend time in. Oliver knew that Eugene had been punished for being in there many times, and yet he had continued to do it.

The foyer opened into the cafeteria, which was still its current use. The mismatched tables, from elegant wood dinner tables to retro green Formica were the same. The Formica was always the table the twins would sit at. The chairs were uncomfortable which meant nobody tried to sit next to them, which was a plus because meals were the place that you could easily get pulled into a fight. The adults who watched over meals were the harshest in doling out reprimands. Not surprisingly, this often included complete clean up of the tables, which should have been the supervisor's job, not the child.

Oliver rested a hand on the table. There was almost two decades of other children's memories piled on, so he didn't sense his or Gene's presence. The memories generally held a pleasant hum, a far cry from the meals he remembered.

The playroom was next, and Oliver wondered what had really changed in the place. The only thing he could not remember was the long wood tables. There had been something more rickety before. Otherwise, the bookshelf was still in the same place. In Oliver's time, there had been history and art books that someone had donated. They were meant for the older residents, but the younger ones still had access to them until someone found a female nude painting in one of the art books. Then all the interesting books had been moved to the top shelf, except for the one art book that Eugene had snuck into their room and hid under the bed. He knew it had always been Oliver's first choice.

The bookshelf had quickly been restocked with titled like Children's Bible Stories and Best Bible Verses for Children, and, of course, many worn copies of the Bible.

Even with this proper instruction, it didn't stop Eugene from deciding he had absolutely no interest in religious studies after leaving the orphanage.

Rob hovered in the doorway. Oliver had a feeling that duty said not to leave a stranger wandering around, even if he had been one of the children originally. There was no telling what kind of propaganda Oliver might leave on the shelves.

The staircase with its worn banister was at the end of the room. Oliver looked at Rob for permission.

"The rooms up there are mainly storage now," Rob said. "Which floor did you live on?"

"The third floor," Oliver said, which normally would be called the attic.

"You're welcome to it."

The staircase had framed photos lining the wall. Oliver was half way up before he found one that held Eugene and his image. They stood side by side. Many children surrounded them, yet there seemed to be a space around them, their own physical barrier. Neither of them was smiling. Eugene had done that on purpose to further frustrate the photographer that had been trying, in vain, to make Oliver smile.

They had had their knuckles rapped with a ruler for that one.

Behind him, Rob said, "So are you the silent one, or the outgoing one?"

Oliver turned away from the photo. "Pardon?"

"I've finally matched your face. You probably don't remember me, I was pretty quiet, but everyone in the orphanage knew of you two."

Oliver looked at him and tried to find features that he would remember. "I was the quiet one." He maybe, vaguely, could remember a Rob. He just had not given other people the light of day. It was easy to admit he was still like that.

"All the children thought there was something strange about you two," Rob said. "It wasn't until I was much older that Alex told me of some of the experiences he had when the twins were living here."

The emphasis that he put on the twins made Oliver smile slightly. Alex had been the only tolerable director, and unfortunately, he had often been overruled in the way he wanted to run the place. "Is Alex still around?" Oliver asked.

"He's semi-retired. He's fast approaching house-grandfather status. He held a special place for you two. It was pretty rare for any of the kids who left to write to him."

"Eugene wrote to Alex?"

"You sound surprised," Rob said. "It was probably just a child's whim, of course. He eventually stopped when he was in his mid teens, I think."

Oliver found his hand on the edge of the picture frame before him. "Alex wouldn't happen…to have those letters?"

For Luella and Martin, he reminded himself. Always for Luella and Martin.

"Most likely. He's a packrat. That's why it wasn't hard to fill the upper levels for storage. Any time he came across something about a former resident…it's easier now, with the internet, but back then it was difficult to come across information, especially overseas. I know he had a few articles about you."

Soon Rob was leading the way up, and Oliver had to follow. They completely passed the second floor to arrive at the third. The hallway was littered with boxes. Each bedroom door was closed.

Rob led Oliver to the third door down. It was the twin's old room - there was a chance that Alex had done it on purpose.

The door opened with a drawn out creak, and allowed light into a space that had not seen it in awhile. Cobwebs adorned the corners; dust swirled off of the floor from the disturbance and resettled onto the boxes.

Oliver's fingertips brushed the doorjamb and he saw the room through the eyes of his six-year-old self. Though everything was well used, it was clean, and bright, with two beds at the far end and two small dressers on the side. A little desk was by the door.

Eugene shoved him in as he announced, "Quit stalling. I want to see."

The old woman behind them caught Eugene's shirt collar and pulled him back. "Be polite and quiet, child," she said, her smoker's voice harsh on the ears.

Oliver blinked when Rob flipped the light switch.

"Did anyone else use this room?" Oliver asked.

"No," Rob said, shifting aside boxes and checking their labels. "Everyone thought it was haunted." He looked up, inquiry in his eyes.

Oliver shook his head. "It wasn't haunted." Eugene could see the dead, but they didn't follow him around. Oliver had only been haunted by specters of his own creation.

Rob made a sound of approval as he cleared off the top two boxes in a stack of three, and slid the bottom one forward. He opened it and found a stack of papers and postmarked envelopes. They were yellowed and musty. "This room leaks sometimes," Rob said in disapproval.

"I remember."

"Well, have at it. Kids will be getting off of school soon, so I have to go. No one will bother you up here."

Oliver nodded his thanks as he picked up the envelope on the top of the pile. The postmark would have put them at ten years old. The one below it was around age fourteen. It looked like someone had scooped the papers up in a careless manner and shoved them into the box.

He opened the age-fourteen one.

Hello Alex,

I write to you at the eve of my fourteenth birthday, where I find myself reminiscing about the past. My life is perfect to today's standards. It's every orphan's dream to be adopted by a wealthy couple and never worry again. But here I am, worrying, what did I do to deserve this life? I would bring in the concept of past lives but I know you don't believe in them…and surprisingly, Mrs. Clark could not beat the thought out of me when I was in the orphanage. Mr. Nelson couldn't stop me from talking to the air in the graveyard behind the church, no matter how many time-outs in the corner he put me in. Miss Jordan could not get me to memorize a single line of the bible, no matter how many times she made me stay late and write sentences on the chalkboard. Of course, you know as I've said before, I'm not blaming you. You were the only bright spot in all the adults of the orphanage. It's just I know I carry the scars from not only that time period in my life, but the blank space before that. What really worries me is that Noll carries all of that and the histories of all the other orphans in his heart. It doesn't leave room for anything else. Every piece of pain they lived through he shared in, and they didn't have any idea. So now he lives through the capabilities of his mind and immerses himself in studies. I want him to open up and live but I can't fix him. No one can but himself, and that leaves me in an endless loop…

Oliver did not read the words as much as hear them, as he saw Gene write them down, his face so serious. The paper slipped from Oliver's fingers.

"God damn it," Oliver murmured, rubbing his temple.

"Oliver Davis?"

Oliver started. A much older version of Alex stood in the doorway. Though, Oliver realized, the man must have been in his mid-thirties when he had known him. Alex's hair had gone salt-and-pepper, and he wore glasses instead of the contacts he had preferred in his youth. He was still of wiry build, and his smile was bright and easy.

"Rob said we had a visitor, but look at you. I can hardly recognize you from that little child that I sent over the ocean. Did your brother – Eugene – come with you?"

Oliver could no longer hold control over his expression, and Alex recoiled.

"Is he…did he…?" Alex's words were incoherent as he pieced the facts together.

"He was sixteen."