Burnt by the Past

I only planned to store some clothes in the attic from a previous life. Life had other ideas. 

She pointed to a trunk plastered with exotic names and stamps.

My grandmother’s fur coat was in the trunk, eaten by moths and a failed marriage. 

A faded postcard from my grandfather hid in one of the pockets, the writing smudged and waterlogged from a brief swim in the Atlantic.

In the other pocket was a one-way ticket, crisped around the edges. Some say it was an accident, a lantern tipped over by the wind. Others say my grandfather’s anger spontaneously lit the house on fire.

This trunk. This coat. This is all I have of my grandmother, the woman I loved more than any of my husbands. 

The woman who whispered,

The only way to get rid of an old flame is to set a new fire.

published in Imogene's Notebook