Word Count: 12,010
Summary of Events:
Olga's oldest brother, Emil, and second brother Zygfryd were up late arguing and woke up Adelejda, which prompted them to quieten down and go to sleep. Keeleigh — given time off work because of the incident — was called by her dad's cousins, who were looking for help going through her Great Aunt's things, and Keeleigh offered to help; she found a sizeable storage room full of things, including a trunk which she was particularly interested in opening . . .
Excerpt of the Day:
"She put the key into the lock and turned it until she heard the click. Carefully, she then lifted the lid and looked inside.
It didn't look like anything spectacular, it was just two of the most battered old cardboard boxes Keeleigh had ever seen in her life.
One box was plastered with stamps, as well as having an elegant, spidery cursive spelling out a mailing address.
Mr. Zbigniew Niemcyk was the recipient, and she noticed that Canada was spelled with a K. The return address explained that, however, as the sender had shipped it to Canada from Warsaw.
Considering that the name on the box was Zbigniew — her great grandfather — Keeleigh guessed this box had been handed down from Klementyna to Kornelia and then to Malwina.
That also suggested that it was some really old cardboard, and explained the rather interesting stamps that plastered a good portion of the box top.
Both it, and the box beside it, had Kornelia written on them in an elegant hand, as well as a different word, which Keeleigh was quite sure was Polish.
In addition, they had writing in a different hand that wasn't quite so elegant, which read Malwina, suggesting as Keeleigh had guessed: her great grandmother had left the boxes to Kornelia upon her passing, and Kornelia had left them to Malwina.
Keeleigh wondered why they'd passed over Uncle Jarek, considering that, even still, he was alive, and he was the child between the two girls. Unless maybe they suspected he wouldn't be interested in the contents.
She quickly texted the Polish word to Dad. He knew enough Polish to speak to his parents in it fluently, which they did sometimes — Keeleigh guessed that it was to discuss private family affairs mostly, probably things like wills and inheritances — so he should know any word she would encounter here.
"Oh," Bev's groan startled Keeleigh, and she turned to see Bev standing in the doorway.
"I figured you wouldn't appreciate seeing this," Keeleigh said. "At least everything's labelled, so it should make life a little bit easier."
"How much stuff did they have?" Bev asked.
"A lot," Keeleigh replied. "Just to your right is boxes of clothes from when your husband was a little boy."
"You can't be serious," Bev said, turning to the boxes.
Keeleigh was going to reply, but her cell phone sounding turned her attention away, and she found that Dad had replied: Papers. If that wasn't generic, Keeleigh didn't know what was."
Pronunciations:
Emil: ehmll
Zygfryd: zeegfreed
Zbigniew: z'bihgneew
Klementyna: klehmehnteenah
Jarek: yahrehk
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