Happy Valentine’s Day! Perfect day for a romantic story prompt. As a history major, this photo intrigued me. Old pictures can speak to hidden histories. Here’s my inspiration:
Blowing my bangs out of my eyes, I slumped back against Great-Grandma’s ancient couch. “Let’s split the boxes between us, get them out of the house, and then we can sort through them at a sane pace.”
My sister Em didn’t even glance at me as she pulled glassware from the old hutch. “It won’t take us that long. And an hour ago, you said we should just leave everything and let the new owner clean it out.”
“I just want to be done with cleaning out the house.” I rubbed my grubby hands on my jeans. “We’ve already taken what Grandma wanted us to have.”
Em tugged on a drawer of the hutch that seemed stuck. With a jerk, she freed it and something fell from the bottom of the drawer. “So that was what was jamming it.”
I crossed to the dining room, dodging boxes, and picked up a piece of folded paper. Three black-and-white photos slid out and drifted to the floor. I gathered them, cleared a spot on the dining room table, and laid them out. One was a picture of Grandma. At least, I though it was. She had only two photos of herself when she was a teenager. It might have been one of her sisters. The second was a portrait of a young man I didn’t recognize. The third showed the young woman and man walking together, clearly as a couple.
Em joined me as I opened the note. Foreign words taunted us.
“Is it Polish?” Em asked.
I shrugged. Grandma had taught us a few Polish words but I’d never read any. “One thing’s certain. If this girl is grandma, she had a boyfriend before Grandpa. And she never said a word about him.”
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What story does the photo inspire for you?
