A PICTURE OF HOME
Sammy sat at her desk again, watching the people down on the street below. She was trying to find a new face to sketch. All of her drawings were coming up looking like the same red haired girl. She wished she could remember why.
"Knock knock, Madame Illustrator," Ashton said softly as he entered holding a tray of tea, "You've been at this for hours. How's it coming?"
"Slowly," she sighed and took the mug. He looked down at her drawings.
"Huh. Have you used a similar design before? I feel like they're familiar…"
"So do I. I can't figure out why. It's bothering me." They both looked at her sketches for a few minutes until Ashton shrugged,
"Maybe it's someone we both saw at one point in the store or something." He kissed her on the cheek and left her to work. Sammy kept staring at the drawings. For some reason it made her think of when she and Ashton had first met. Their first date had been shopping in the south side of London, and that had been nearly four years ago. Everyone had said they were too young, at twenty, to get married.
They would be celebrating their first year wedding anniversary in a few days and Sammy would have had her job as a children's book illustrator for three years a week later.
Why was there something about that that made her feel sad? She'd been having those dreams again. She'd drawn out a couple of them, and they made no sense. Stars. Time. And always the same firebird. She hadn't told Ashton.
"Do you ever feel like there's part of your life sort of...missing?" she asked him later that day.
"Is this you saying you want kids?" Ashton said, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, "Because I don't know if I'm ready for that."
"No! No. Goodness no. Just...like there's something missing from your memories? Like something you should remember but can't?"
Ashton waited a moment before answering, "I dunno. Maybe...but not like anything major. Are you doing okay, Sam?" he looked a little concerned.
"I'm doing fine."
"None of your dreams?"
"No...well not any that make sense." He took her hand for a moment then said,
"You know I want you to tell me these things."
"I know…"
"Let's talk about something else. I thought we could take a trip to Paris for our anniversary, just for a weekend. Would you like that?" Sammy pretended to be interested in Paris for a little while before withdrawing to her room. On her desk was a polaroid she hadn't taken. It was of an old man and old woman sitting in a parlor together. The woman was a complete stranger but the man...there was an address on the bottom. She turned it over. Message was written on the back.
Some friends from long ago…