Montana Summer Ch. 13

"What the hell did you find that is so funny?" Bill asked.

Reaching into the suitcase he retrieved a burnt-orange suit coat and matching pants. "Whose were these?"

Bill turned beet red. "Hey, I looked pretty damned suave in that getup."

"Maybe I can borrow it sometime." Ryan managed to get the words out as he laughed.

Suzanne had just climbed the ladder and asked, "What did you find, Ryan?" Then she spotted the suit. "Oh my god, Bill, I thought you had given that away years ago!"

Bill blushed even deeper. "Well, I didn't and I still might keep it. You never know, it might come back into style again."

"Oh, god, I hope not," Ryan blurted out.

"Do you think you still fit into that suit?" Suzanne gave her husband a doubtful look. She looked over at Ryan and explained, "I think that was the outfit he wore to the senior prom."

"Yeah, it was," Bill blustered. "And I looked great!"

Ryan fell to his knees, his sides were aching from laughing so hard. "Yeah, the Great Pumpkin."

Suzanne wiped her eyes. She was laughing nearly as hard as Ryan was. "Well, Halloween is coming."

Even Bill couldn't help but laugh now. "Well, maybe it is time..."

They had cleared out most of the junk and the nearly full truck was a testament to their dedication to the morning's work. Ryan was putting boxes back and organizing the old furniture that Suzanne wanted to keep when he spotted something that they hadn't gone through. "What about this old trunk?"

"What old trunk?" Bill asked.

"This one." Ryan pointed to an old dusty trunk that had been hidden by some furniture.

"Oh, that's Grandma's old trunk," Bill replied. "Go ahead and pull it out. I think it's full of sheet music from when she played the organ at the church."

"I haven't seen that since..." Suzanne paused and then gave her husband a questioning look. "Before Jessi was born?"

"I don't know if we were even married when we moved that up here. I think Grandma had just passed away when Grandpa asked me to put it up here. It's been a lot of years. I had completely forgotten about it."

Ryan pulled the heavy trunk out from the corner and then popped the latches and opened the trunk. Just as his uncle had said, it seemed to be full of sheet music. Ryan began to take out the music and stack it neatly into piles.

"She played so beautifully," Suzanne reminisced as she thumbed through the music.

Ryan was nearing the bottom of the trunk. "Hey, here's an old photo album."

"Oh my god!" Bill got quiet as he pulled the old album out of the trunk. "I haven't seen this since—I don't know when."

Suzanne peered over her husband's shoulder. "Well, it was before we met, I know that I've never seen it before."

Bill nodded. "She only brought it out for special occasions. I think I only saw it a couple of times." He chuckled as he thought of his grandmother. "And it was only at the table with her turning the pages. There was no way that our grubby little hands were going to mess up her picture book."

Ryan went to get up when his foot slipped on a marble and sent his arms crashing into the bottom of the trunk. What looked to be the bottom of the trunk popped up. Ryan regained his balance and removed the false bottom from the trunk and peered into it. "Oh my... God!" Ryan exclaimed. "Look at this!"

Bill set down the album and looked into the bottom of the trunk. "I'll be damned!"

Secrets. We all have them. Sometimes we share them, and sometimes we keep them, and often they are taken to the grave. Secrets can forge bonds or they can break them. The mountains have their secrets, and some have been revealed. Voices from the past can reveal answers to questions long forgotten. Secrets, lives have been changed because of them.

I would like to thank Selenakittyn for editing this chapter. I don't know what I would do without her now.