Sitting atop Nana’s dresser, fragile yellowed photographs gazed upon me.

Dark, greased back hair, haunting eyes and a remarkable resemblance to James Dean; an uncle whom I’d never meet. I often found my childish thoughts confabulating great tales, hoping the photos would reveal his secrets. But only silence followed; the past tucked away and replaced with assumptions. Distracting me from my adolescent curiosity, Nana would often call to me from the living room, and I’d obediently sit alongside her rocker while she knitted or crocheted in an unnerving silence.

There was never a hit or harsh word, but there was no love in their hearts to give to me. I felt a ubiquitous presence hiding in the shadows of their home that haunted my thoughts and dreams. I heard no one in the family bring up the past or my uncle, just bitter bites told of two people who didn’t love each other; he was a husband that disliked women, and a father who lost his will to live when his son lost his.

Laid to rest in a farming town, earth, weeds, and crumbling headstones conceal my grandparents in a darkened fate. I sit alongside them and the uncle whom I never met. Can they hear my heart beating? Do they know I loved them? Are they at peace? I watch leaves fall like rain surrounding me in golden hues. I hear whispers on the wind.