Week Fourteen: Thursday
Who: Ada and Cassandra (Rhett later) What: Sister time Where: Outside, but beginning in Zephyr House When: Thursday evening
Ada sat cross-legged on her bed looking at the pictures she'd found boxed away in her apartment in Nashville. That was the bad thing about subletting, anything you didn't want screwed all to hell had to be put in storage. These pictures were certainly on that list of things. The images she was looking at were copies of the originals she'd found. She couldn't just part with the only ones she had, after all. The new prints had better color quality than the others because of that 'touch up' service at the printing shop, but that was just a random thought that didn't really have any bearing on the situation.
She had put them together in a small photo album for Cassie. They were arranged as chronologically as best she could manage it since she'd never been one to date her photos very well. The first was one of Ada holding Cassandra as a newborn. She had one of those ubiquitous pink "I'm A Big Sister" shirts on and was grinning from ear to ear even if she wasn't quite holding her baby sister exactly right. There were several more like that when Cassandra was really little, most taken around Christmas time. Ada 'helping' her open presents under the tree (because really, what kid didn't want MORE paper to rip?), Ada holding a doll, mimicking the way her grandma was holding Cassandra. Time went on and Cassie was walking in the photos. Easter egg hunting--Ada holding a basket for both of them in one hand, and Cassie's hand in the other. Halloween--Cassie as a pumpkin and Ada as a fairy. Always smiling. There were family pictures as well, with the entire group of them, but Ada hadn't found as many of those. She hadn't held on to them.
The last pictures were just before Ada got sent off to boarding school and everything went bad. Ada would be singing on a karaoke machine, her favorite toy ever, while Cassandra looked on or joined in. Looking back, Ada thought that smiling as much as she had then might make her face hurt now. She wasn't used to it any more. That part of her childhood hadn't been all happy, not even close, but the moments captured on film made it seem that way. Finally, looking at her watch, she saw it was time to go meet up with her now grown-up little sister. She woke Emmylou up from where she'd curled on Ada's pillow, snapped the pink leash onto her collar, and carried the little pup down the stairs so that she wouldn't fall. Walking with a short-legged puppy made the trip to Zephir take a little longer than usual, but that was all right. She followed someone else inside and walked to the girls dorms, found Cassie's door, and knocked.