The Frame of Grandma's Past

Ella pulled up outside her grandma’s house and sighed. The house was a beautiful 1904 built colonial in a village in Upstate New York. Ella had grown up coming to this house every summer and school break, it was her second home. She wasn’t ready to clean it out and get it ready to sell, but her grandma had died over a month ago, and it was time.

She got out of the car and walked up to the house. She could hear her cousins, Matt and Ryan talking loudly over the music blasting through their grandma’s built-in speakers. Their grandma, Josephine, had been a music and art connoisseur, and their grandpa, Elliot, had been an acoustics engineer. Their house had the best sound system that Ella had ever seen in a home, and was filled to the brim with art and trinkets.

“Hey, how can you hear yourselves think in this?” Ella yelled as she walked in.

“ELLA!” Matt picked her up in a bear hug before she could run away, both of them laughing and reverting immediately back to childhood.

“My goodness, Matt, you’re going to break her back!” Matt’s wife, Mary, came into the entryway, shaking her head as Matt put Ella back down. Ella hugged Mary and Ryan, following them into the kitchen to grab some coffee before getting started. It had been a month since the funeral and was the first time the four of them were getting together. Matt, Ella and Ryan were the three oldest cousins and the only adults. Matt and Ryan’s mom was Josephine’s oldest, and Ella’s mom was the second-born. The other aunts had been born eight and ten years later, and had only just started having kids. To take some of the pressure off of their moms, Matt, Ryan and Ella had all agreed at the funeral to take care of cleaning out the house before it went on the market. They’d decided to all stay at the house for the weekend, crashing in the living room on the couches and sleeping bags for nostalgia sake.

“Okay,” Ella said once they’d caught up and made a loose plan for the weekend. “I’ll get started upstairs in Grandma’s loft. Lunch in three hours?”

They all dispersed to their separate rooms to start sorting through all of their grandma’s possessions.

Ella opened the door to the loft, which was technically the attic. It was a beautiful attic - sun streamed through the skylight that her grandfather had installed, and when she closed the door, the music from two floors down faded away. Being an acoustic engineer, her grandfather had soundproofed the attic, so her grandma could have one room in the house with complete silence. Ella walked in and looked around. Despite not painting for at least a year due to her hand tremors, Ella knew her grandma still loved coming up here. This was where she had died - sitting on the armchair in the corner, peacefully in her sleep.

Any other circumstances, Ella would have been creeped out by the thought of someone dying in this room, but something about it being her grandma was comforting. She could almost sense her grandma’s presence in the room.

Ella spent the next hour dusting and tossing obvious garbage. She opened the closet door and looked around at the cluttered closet. On one side were piles of framed and unframed art, the other had piles of boxes with supplies. She decided to start with the pile of art, assuming that most of the art supplies would be donated or thrown out.

She dragged one pile out of the closet and sat down on the floor to start sorting through. She smiled at some of her and her cousins’ paintings, placing them in the “keep” pile. Others were so faded or the paint had cracked from drying out that they immediately went into the “trash” pile. Only a few had made it to the “donate” pile before she reached a framed painting of a young couple. Ella blinked, realizing that the figure on the left was not a man, but a woman dressed in a man’s suit. The woman on the right was wearing typical late 1960’s feminine fashion with a slight hint at the impending hippie era. The woman on the right looked familiar, but Ella couldn’t place from where. Ella reached down to pick up the painting for a closer look, but as soon as she touched the frame, she blacked out.

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She opened her eyes and found herself sitting in a diner across from the familiar woman in the painting. Ella looked around. Everything felt like the 1960’s - the diner looked like the one in her grandma’s village, but it looked brand new instead of decades old. The booths were full of young adults, all dressed in classic 1960’s fashion. Ella jumped when she noticed a young man sitting next to her.

“Josie, why don’t you just talk to her?” He asked the woman, presumably Josie.

“Because, Ell, it’s not right. My mother would kill me if she knew…” Josie sighed and glanced across the diner, smiling with a sad look in her eyes. Ella turned around and saw a group of women sitting at another booth.

Josie? Ell? Ella blinked. Her breath caught as she realized what was happening. She waved her hands and arms in front of Josie and Ell, but they didn’t react. Ella was sitting at the same booth as her grandparents - possibly before they were married.

Ella looked at Josie’s hands, but didn’t see an engagement or wedding ring. And Ell didn’t have a ring or the watch he’d bought for his wedding. Ella wondered how old they were if they weren’t engaged or married yet and what year she was in - her aunt had been born in 1971 and her mom in 1973 when her grandma was 25 and 27. The woman sitting across from her looked to be around 20 or 21.

“You’re allowed to have female friends, Josie. Your mother won’t know the difference.” Before Josie could respond, Ell turned around and beckoned to one of the women. “Hey, Alice, come over here,” he yelled.

“What? Ell, no!” Josie hissed at him, her cheeks blushing as Alice came over with her soda in one hand.

“Hey guys,” Alice smiled at them both and sat down next to Josie. “How’s it going?”

Josie tucked her hair shyly behind her ear before turning to look at Alice, smiling softly. “Groovy, how about you?”

Alice giggled, “Groovy here, too. Want some soda?” She held out her glass bottle, Alice’s fingers grazing Josie’s as she took it.

Ella suddenly felt like she was intruding on an intimate moment. Ell cleared his throat, “Well, that’s my queue to leave. I’ll be at the dance, maybe catch you two there later.” He stood up and left.

“Why have you been avoiding me?” Alice asked, her smile fading.

“I’m sorry…it’s my mom.”

Alice reached her hand over and placed it gently on Josie’s leg. Josie flinched. “Alice, not here,” she glanced around.

“Babe, please. No one is paying attention to us, and even if they are, it just looks like I’m comforting a friend.” Ella gasped at the ‘babe’.

Josie relaxed slightly, “My mom just went on a rant the other day about our generation. She wants me to find a man and get married and start having kids, Alice. Like…she’s setting me up on a date tomorrow night.” Alice was silent. “With a man…”

“Why can’t you tell her about us?” Alice asked quietly.

“Because she’ll kick me out, disown me…might even try to call the police on me or something. She’s not like your parents, Alice. She hates anyone who’s different.”

“Is that why you haven’t invited me over lately?”

“She made a comment about your short hair…I tried to stand up for you, tell her that it’s the new fashion, but she accused me of being in sin when I’m with you. She said as long as I live in her house, I’m not allowed…”

“Not allowed?! So move out, Jo. Stop hiding yourself, just let yourself be truly happy for once in your life. Aren’t you happy with me?”

“Of course I am,” Josie said quickly. Ella had never heard anyone call her grandma Jo before. But she also never knew her grandma was queer. “Alice, you make me happier than I’ve ever felt in my life.” Josie grabbed Alice’s hand and squeezed it. “If I could kiss you right now, I would…”

Josie let go of Alice’s hand and sighed. “Josie, move in with me. We can even tell people we’re roommates if you want. And I can get you a job at the office, you can be a secretary with me. We have an opening.”

“But you live in a one bedroom apartment, Alice.”

“So we’ll find a two bedroom. I have a lot saved up…

“Alice, I don’t know.”

“Alice, c’mon, we’re heading to the movie!” One of the women at the other booth yelled over.

“Be right there!” She yelled back before turning to Josie one last time. “Think about it, okay?” She planted a quick kiss on Josie’s cheek, who turned crimson red but smiled, and ran to meet up with her other friends. Josie finished Alice’s soda and left a couple bucks on the table before leaving.

Ella stood up but felt dizzy, blacking out again almost immediately.

When she opened her eyes, she was in a small apartment. She heard voices in another room down the hall. Ella stood up cautiously and walked down the hall towards an open door.

Josie and Alice were posing and dressed in the same outfits as the portrait Ella had found in the attic. A painter sat on one side of the room, music playing softly through a record player, and the two women chatting with each other.

“Okay, we’re all finished here ladies,” the painter said. Alice squealed with excitement and leaned over to kiss Josie, who didn’t shy away this time. Ella gasped and looked away, feeling so uncomfortable knowing this was her grandma. Her mind was racing again, and before she knew it, she was dizzy and falling to the ground.

She woke up in the apartment again, but heard crying. “I’m so sorry I need to do this…but this doesn’t mean we’re over. I just need to get my mom off my back, and need to help Ell. It’s for him, to protect his safety. To keep him alive.”

“I know,” Alice said, sniffling. “You’ll still come over here on weekends?”

“I promise. This isn’t the end of us, it’s just…a necessary part of our life. We will never be accepted, baby, I’m so sorry.” They both cried and held each other.

Josie blacked out again, waking up again in a church.

“Elliot, do you take Josephine to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

Elle gasped - it was her grandparent’s wedding. What was going on? She spotted Alice in the audience, who was sitting in the last row, tears streaming down her face. She recognized a man sitting next to Alice, but couldn’t place him. He looked equally as upset.

Before the ceremony continued, Elle heard someone calling her name in the distance. She felt a rush and found herself on the floor of the loft.

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“Elle, are you okay?” Matt was kneeling over her, shaking her gently, saying her name loudly. “Elle? Hey guys, come up here! Something’s wrong with Elle!” He yelled down the stairs.

“What?” Elle looked around the loft and heard footsteps on the stairs in the distance, rapidly getting closer. “Did I pass out?”

“I don’t know, I just came up here a couple minutes ago to check on you. We’re ordering lunch…” Matt backed up and let Elle sit up. “What happened?”

“I was looking at this painting,” she gestured to the painting on the floor next to her.

“Is that grandma?” Matt reached down to grab it but Elle jumped.

“NO, don’t touch it,” she yelled at him, knocking his hands away. “That’s the last thing I remember - touching the frame. I saw things, Matt…” Everything flooded back to her, but she was missing so many pieces of the story.

“What’s wrong?” Ryan was breathless at the top of the stairs. Mary pushed passed him.

“You need to go to the gym,” she said as she brushed past. “Elle, you okay? Taking a nap on the job?”

Elle laughed, but was still shaken. “I don’t know, maybe the dust…or something got to me.”

Mary handed Elle a bottle of water, and Elle took a long gulp.

“I was just telling Matt what happened. I touched the frame and like…traveled back in time. I saw Grandma and Grandfather, and this other woman in the painting. But it was before Grandma and Grandfather were married. Grandma was with…her. Alice.” She pointed to the other woman in the photo.

“I mean…doesn’t really surprise me,” Ryan said. “I met Alice once. And I met a lot of Grandfather’s close friends, they were all gay guys. I’ve suspected their marriage was really a best friendship cover up of Grandfather’s gayness for years now…I guess if I think about it, Alice and Grandma seemed very close. But I was like, 15, so I barely thought anything of it at the time. But they spent the whole day with us, and Alice took us out to dinner. She sat next to Grandma and kept putting her arm around her. I went to bed before Alice left, but that was the only time I ever met her.”

“I saw this woman at the funeral,” Mary said. “I talked to her…she was really upset. They were lovers?”

Elle nodded. “They lived together I think.”

The four of them stared silently at the painting.

“I’m going to touch it,” Ryan reached out and touched the frame. He looked up after a moment. “Nothing happened,” he said.

They took turns touching the frame before they all touched it together. Nothing.

“I swear it happened…I was there. In a diner, and then in the apartment in the bedroom when they were being painted. And then at the church during Grandma and Grandfather’s wedding.”

“We believe you,” they all agreed. “C’mon, let’s figure out lunch,” Mary said, pulling them all out of their thoughts.

The rest of the weekend went on without any mysterious flashbacks, but the cousins uncovered more photographs of Alice and Grandfather’s guy friends. One of them looked like the man Elle had seen weeping next to Alice. They pieced together parts of the story, and decided to talk to their moms next weekend at their upcoming family reunion to figure out the rest of the story.

After the reunion, the four of them got together for drinks. Their parents had known about Alice, but had never seen that painting before. They decided that Elle could keep the painting, who secretly hoped that the flashbacks would happen again so she could piece together the story even more. In years to come, her friends, partners and children all loved the image, and Elle told her grandma’s truth - that it was her Grandma Josie and her girlfriend, Alice. The cousins never told anyone about what happened to Elle during that weekend at the house, and the magic never happened again.