Henry Franks A Novel - By Peter Adam Salomon Page 0,12

just enough to make it difficult to pick up again. A single photograph fell out of the small opening, landing on its face. On the back, a woman’s hand had written Frank above a yellowed date, March 14, followed by a year that could have been 1968 or 1963.

The little boy in the picture was less than five. If Henry squinted in the dim light, it sort of looked like him.

Like Pandora, he opened the box.

There were hundreds of photos, all black-and-white, dated throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, with the same handwriting. By the time the boy in the photographs was a teen, the resemblance between the stranger and himself was unmistakable.

Frank?

Henry sat in the basement, sneezing, holding the box of snapshots in his lap. One spider had visited to take a look but hadn’t stayed for long. A smaller one, barely visible, had scurried back into the box of pictures and not been seen since.

The photos were taken in front of unknown houses; no addresses could be seen or found. No other names appeared even in the pictures where Frank wasn’t alone. And in the mid-seventies, the pictures stopped altogether.

Henry dumped the box onto the floor and sifted through them all again, but there was nothing more.

He scooped all the pictures back into the box, gathered up his supplies, and walked to the stairs. On the bottom step he turned around to pull the cord. He froze with his hand on the string and, for the first time, really looked at the boxes lining the maze. Each identical, some with labels, most without.

He walked to the first box and peeked inside.

Blank paper.

Next.

Electrical cords.

Again.

Socks.

And again.

Again.

Another.

Behind him, boxes littered the floor.

Nothing.

Halfway through, with dozens of boxes still to search, he heard the garage door open. He stopped and surveyed the damage he’d done.

Henry jumped over the boxes strewn about and took the narrow stairs two at a time, tugging the string as he ran past. Each step threatened to collapse underneath him and he slipped halfway up. He stopped his fall with his palms and walked the rest of the way, then closed the door and pushed the cart back into place. His pants were dust-covered, cobwebs in his hair and on his shirt.

The clothes went into the washer and he ran his fingers through his hair to dislodge the webs. He hurried up the stairs before his father entered the kitchen. In his room, he went to put on clean clothes and noticed a trail of blood running down his left arm. A splinter from the basement steps stuck out of his palm and small red drops had splattered on the floor.

Henry tried to grab the wood, but his mismatched finger didn’t bend far enough. He brought his palm to his mouth and bit down on the splinter. His skin ripped as it tore free. Blood ran over his scar, creating a bracelet of blood on his skin.

A small piece of wood bit into his lip when he spit the splinter out, and he groaned with the sudden pain. He grabbed some tissues to stem the bleeding from his palm. No matter how hard he pressed, his hand didn’t hurt at all.

“Why’s it so hot?” his father asked when Henry walked downstairs.

“Circuit blew, had to reset the breaker a few minutes ago.”

His father looked at the ceiling, where the fan blew warm air around the room. His shoulders slumped and he sighed. He looked at Henry, closed his eyes, and placed the mail on the table unread. Without a word, he walked out of the kitchen.

Henry started to follow, standing at the transition between kitchen tile and hardwood floor, but stopped before he’d taken more than a step or two. A couple of doors stood open, one to a small bathroom and one to an unused office. At the very end of the hall, his father stood before the heavy oak door to the master bedroom.

“Been a long summer, Henry,” his father said, not turning around as he rested his hand on the doorknob. He looked back over his shoulder, sighed, and then opened the door.

The air-conditioner had yet to have much of an impact on the heat that had built up in the house. Henry wiped his fingers through his hair, coming away with a few remaining cobwebs, as his father’s door locked behind him with a deep thud.

In his room, Henry slid the scrapbook out and opened it up. A page ripped at the bottom when