The Picture In The Attic

DISCLAIMER: THE X-MEN, JACQUES, & JEAN-LUC DO NOT BELONG TO ME. THEY ARE THE PROPERTY OF MARVEL COMICS AND 20th CENTURY FOX. THE ONLY CHARACTERS THAT ARE MINE, ARE THE TWO CHILDREN IN THE STORY. NO MONEY EXCHANGED, JUST FOR FUN.


Being up from 5AM, getting ready for work and making sure the kids were off to school, and then not being able to end his day until their last bedtime call at 9, was not one of his favourite tasks. But he took it in stride and weakened into the hum-drum life of fatherhood. He was an architect by trade, and father by default. After his wife inconveniently left him for someone else, he picked up the pieces of his two children's wounded hearts and pushed on.

The oldest of the two had been the most angry for him to deal with. Alexander Michel LeBeau was a very heartfelt 9 year old who saw through most of his mother's empty promises. He had seen fit to take on and handle what his younger sister, Roberta, could not. Alex had taken down every single picture of his mother he could find, with exception of the few in his father's room, and placed them in a box in the closet. He took longer to go to bed at night than his sister. Often arguing with Remy on staying up til later, he made it until 9, and then fell asleep, usually on the livingroom floor.

Roberta was a soft and understanding little girl of only 7. She was quiet and sweet when it came to hard details of family but, she easily strode through with grace. Every evening, she'd wait for Remy to finish the dishes and walk upstairs to read her a chapter of her favourite story, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She'd lie there in her bed, on her right side, and snuggle her floppy yellow bunny close while staring at only him as she listened. By the fifth page, she was asleep.

Closing the book and shutting off the tiny dollhouse light that sat on the floor, beside the pink and yellow frilly bed, she leaned over and kissed her temple before leaving the room. He always left her door open a crack so he could hear her in the night if she got up or had a bad dream, which was rare.

He sighed as he turned around and returned to the downstairs livingroom to gather his sleeping boy and place him in bed before heading to bed himself. As he scooped Alex into his arms, a roll of faint thunder sounded from a ways off but, would eventually grow as it came closer. By mid-staircase, it was strong enough to feel through the house in a dull rumble. Remy paused and waited for movement from Alex, or a sound from Bobbie's room. Nothing, good.

Tucking Alex into his black and blue racecar bed with black and white checkered sheets and blanket, he kissed the boy's forehead and stood there a moment to watch the boy sleep and twitch in his dreams. The room had been dark and lit only by the hall light that flickered during the next wave of thunder. Turning around, he tilt his head at the strange thump that came from the hall.

Checking the hallway before leaving the room and cracking the door, Remy shook his head as he walked back downstairs to shut off the lights and make sure the doors were locked. The upstairs hall light was the only light left on as he reclimbed the stairs to put himself to bed.

Another rumble, louder and with more than light shaking, rolled through the house. Another bump came from above, again. He stood at the top of the stairs and held onto the bannister, trying to place the bump. Pausing still as another rumble filled the house and then the bump, his attention was directed to his left. Turning to his left and walking to the corner before turning left again, to go to his bedroom, he stopped halfway between the corner and his door to look up.

The attic.

A medium sized rectangle dropdown door with ladder had made the bumping sound as the thunder shook the roof, causing the ladder to bounce. On the next rumble, Remy reached up to check the door but jumped back as the rumble became a roar and shook the door and ladder loose, letting the door drop open infront of him.

Startled, he sighed and caught the door in hand to latch it shut again. He pushed on the door when it wouldn't close all the way, and then tried holding the ladder while pushing, nothing worked. Opening the door and pulling out the ladder to climb, he peeked into the attic before climbing all the way up. As he stood at the top, he reached up and found a string to pull for the light.

It was a small attic but as wide as the house. Boxes of baby stuff from the children, as well as boxes from his father and grandfather. The small vented window to his far right, let in the flash of lightning before the thunder that followed 5 seconds later, shaking the dust from the rafters loose, in turn causing Remy to cough and sneeze as his took a breath.

Something heavy moved a few feet infront of him and he redirected his attention from the window to the object. The lightbulb dangled from a wire and swung a bit at the next rumble, causing the light the give only glimpses at the object. It wasn't a very bright bulb but it wasn't dim, either. It was just enough light for Remy to make his way over to the object and sqwat down to see.

A large rectangle frame that was covered with faded brown paper and held together with string was the thing that moved, balancing on mainly one of the beams that jutted up from the floor as the second one held the corner. It leaned against the wall and jumped at a dulled rumble of thunder before another loud one hit. Holding it with one hand, Remy reached up to the part in the paper and peeked through a hole before pulling on an end of string and letting the tie come undone. The paper held it's place as if the string was still there, until Remy opened a side of the paper to see the left half of a large oil painting.

Resting the back against the wall, he opened the right side of the paper to see the whole painting. It was a man, standing in the middle of a plantation field, dressed in Union General's clothes. His left hand on the pommel of his sword and his right limp to his side. A grizzly looking man with short black hair that seemed to stand out at the sides from underneath his hat contained a look on his face of silent dispair of possibly the army, or death of war, or..... something else.

Remy checked the sides and top and bottom for a name or a year or anything. Finding only a scratch on the back that said 1864, he sighed and adjusted it to sit on two beams as it rest against the wall. His fingers felt along the heavy, delicately carved frame only to find the twirls of designs held no secret words or letters, just swirls and bumps in tarnished gold painted wood. Another roar of thunder shook the house and the painting as well, revealing a tri-fold paper slip out from behind the painting. Picking up the paper and deciding to remove the picture from the attic to have better light in his bedroom, he tucked the paper into the back pocket of his tan khaki pants and braced his hands to lift. Grabbing the middle of each side and lifting as he stood up, he found it was a very heavy picture. The frame alone must have weighed 40 pounds.

It had taken him ten minutes to carry it over to the opening, and another ten minutes to get it down the ladder, and then five minutes to borrow Alex's skateboard to quietly roll it into his room. Sliding it off of the skateboard and leaning it against the wall at the foot of the bed took an additional 15 minutes due to the rolling of the skateboard. Panting and wiping his brow with the back of his right hand covered the sound of his little girl calling for him.

"Poppie! Poppie!" Bobbie sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes, trying not to cry as the loud thunder boomed outside her window. Board straight brown hair had been mussed and her long-sleeved pink nightgown had been wrapped around her in her struggles of sleep and dream. "Poppie!" She screamed as another clap roared through the house. This time her tears came freely and grew louder as Remy hurried through the door and turned on her light.

"Wha's a matter, petite?" He whispered as he sat down on the side of her bed, wrapping his arms around her as she buried her face in his chest. Soothing her hair and whispering in her ear that it was just noise outside, he managed to get her to lay back down while he thought of how to drown out the sound. A small cassette player sat on her toy-stuffed bookshelf and caught his eye. He stood up and lift the lid, finding no cassette inside. "Hmm. Be right back, belle." He left the room for a moment to rummage through his collection of tapes and cds he had in a box in his closet. Finding one that had always seemed to work for his wife, when she had been pregnant with Roberta, he hurried back into her room.

Adjusting the volume and readying the player, he pushed play and the soft, mellow voice of Nat King Cole caressed the room. Turning on the dollhouse light before kissing her forehead and telling her to close her eyes as he shut off the overhead light and sat back down on the side of her bed, he waited for her to finally drift off before leaving.

The blue numbers of the clock beside the bed read 11:35 as he removed the paper from his pocket and sat down on the end of the bed to stare at the painting before unfolding the note. The writing was an elegant cursive that held the smallest detail of having been written by a man.


Jacques,

I am sorry I cannot meet you like I promised.
My duties come first in the waking hours but
I hope you know I will be with you as soon as
I can. I miss holding you and lying there with
you, discussing better times together. You
are always on my mind, from the moment
I wake to the instant I fall asleep.

Until I can get away,

Logan


"Logan? And, Jacques....? Gran'pa?" Remy stared in shock at the carefully written words on the paper. The page itself had been old and yellowed from heat and age but, the words although faded, stood out like a neon sign. His first thought was to ring his father and ask him about the painting. His next thought was to wait until morning. Glancing up to look at the painting, he stood and walked around to the opposite side of the bed to pick up the cordless phone and dial his father's number.

It rang only twice before Jean-Luc picked up and mumbled a sleepy, "Hello?" into the phone. He had been asleep only a few hours, dozing off in the middle of a book that lay open on his chest. The bedside light had been on and he squinted as he opened his eyes to look at the clock.

"Poppa, you up?" Remy paced the legnth of his bed, his free hand holding the note at his side as the other held the phone to his ear.

Jean-Luc pushed himself to sit up in his weary state and close the book that fell to his lap. "Depends. Can dis wait 'til mornin, Remy?" He rubbed his eyes with his index finger and thumb as he waited for Remy to answer.

"Honestly, yes but--" Remy stopped pacing and faced the window, turning his back on the bed he had originally wanted to crawl into and pass out.

"Den, no." Jean-Luc had been ready to hang up his antique rotary phone when a word stopped him.

Remy took a breath and said as loud and clearly as he could without waking the children. "Logan." He paused a moment to hear his father's breath catch as the name was uttered. "Who was he, poppa? And why did Jacques have his paintin in my attic?" He turned around to walk over and close his door, glancing at the painting as he passed it. Pushing the door to so that it silently latched, he turned back to look at the man in the painting.

"He was a man who fought for de Union in de war. Was also your grandpa's....." he paused to clear his throat and brush the reluctance of the rest off as he finished. "secret lover. Remy, why bring dis up now, in the middle of the night?"

"Because I found the paintin in de attic, an' I don' remember puttin it up dere, poppa. Sides, how come I never heard of dat side of Jacques?" Remy sat down on the floor, in front of the painting and narrowed his eyes at the face of the man, studying it. "What happened to dem?"

Jean-Luc hesitated his answer, weighing it on what Remy should know and what the family wanted him to know. "My father was a young man when de Civil War broke out. He was only a young captain in de Confederate Army when he met an older, Union Lieutenant in Vicksburg. When Jacques came home from de front, he told his sister dat Logan took him prisoner and dey spent de night 'gettin to know one 'nother on a personal basis.' Anyway, after de war, Logan came lookin for him. He got as far as Baton Rouge 'fore he was caught and lynched as a yankee." He paused to listen to Remy's even breathing, hearing slight flinches as he told the story.

"So, where does de paintin come in, and de letter?" Remy was bound and determined to solve the puzzle before he went to bed. A hushed yawn over the phone reminded Remy that he was also tired but couldn't think of going to bed just yet. "Poppa?"

"For six years dey wrote back an' forth, meetin when dey could and keepin it in secret. De paintin, Logan had done for him a year before the war ended. De letter came just prior to Logan's lynchin. Logan never gave up de reason why he was in Baton Rouge with yankee colours." Jean-Luc yawned again. "Remy, go to bed. We'll talk in de mornin." Before Remy could protest and keep him on the phone longer, he hung up and turned off the bedside lamp as he laid back down.

Giving in to his father's order, Remy laid down and closed his eyes. The man in the painting ran through his mind as he imagined being in Jacques shoes and being taken prisoner of a Union soldier. Images of the war and men dying all around him, the smell of copper and iron of blood filled his nose and threatened nausea. The sounds of gasping and grunting and tender kisses of lips on lips and skin filled his ears. He could see Logan in his mind but, heard no voice as the man's lips were speaking to him- Jacques. They kissed briefly, and then went their separate ways from Logan's tent, in the middle of the Mississippi forest on a cool and foggy early July morning.

The next sound Remy heard was the music of his alarm telling him it was 6 in the morning. He had overslept by a half hour and that he needed to get up and get ready for the day. He was just about to sit up when the announcer came on the radio and ran down a list of schools that were closed due to flooding or no electricity from the night's storm. "Perfect." He groaned and rolled from his back to his left side, shutting off the alarm and yawning himself back to sleep for a little while longer.


Continued.....