A picture of happier times

When I got back from visiting the place where my prince died, I started to look through more of the boxes I got from the orphanage a few years back from the investigators. Some of the boxes were filled with some strange things in them, like ribbons, marbles, and clothes pins.

Another box had some things that looked like they were suppose to be in a collection, like some seasonal perfume bottles and a set of noble-looking knives. One box had storybooks that we made and some books from the library. Another box was full of vinyl albums. I remember many of these songs were played when we were doing the annual cleaning.

But out of all the boxes, there was one box that held the most memories. It had all of the photo albums from when the Rose Garden Orphanage first opened up with it's first orphans to several weeks before the massacre with it's last ones.

As I looked through all of the albums, I saw how all of the adults changed. Mr. Hoffman had barely any wrinkles when the orphanage started up. I frowned when I saw the Queen of Clean, Martha. She looked the same as when I saw her last. I shook my head and continued to look through at the photos.

When I got the last album, I noticed that this one was labeled: Rose Garden Orphans. I opened it up to realize that is was a book for people to look through to see if they wanted to adopt a child from the orphanage.

The few pages were the first orphans at Rose Garden. Passed those first ones where the other children I knew. On the backside of each page told how old the child was, when their birthday was if Mr. Hoffman knew, and other things the adopters wanted to know.

After looking through that book, I looked in the box to see if there was anything left to see. At the bottom, there was a loose picture. It was caught in the folds of the box.

I picked it up to get a closer look at it. It was a picture of Jennifer and me outside. It must have been before or after Christmas because there were boxes with lights, garland, and other Christmas decorations scattered around the yard.

Jennifer and I were in our old worn-out coats and standing in the middle of the walkway leading out to the forest. We were hugging each other and looking at the camera, smiling.

In the background, Diana, the Duchess, was standing by a tree. She had some garland around her neck like a scarf and looking like she was pretending to be a model. The Baroness, Meg, had a large armful of poinsettias and standing by Diana. The Countess, Eleanor, was standing by the gates and holding a wreath in her hands. A faint smile could be barely seen in the picture.

On the other side of the gate, the other orphans were either throwing snowballs, making snowmen, or making snow angels. This was a picture of happier times.