The U Turn 02:22
She thought it best to take stock. What she knew, what questions lingered.
Backstory, backstory... She suspected she was approaching the publisher's request all wrong. She was thinking about the things she would have written about. Her upsets. Those things that she had inserted herself into.
Truth, she knew nothing of Silvie's life after she left. The summer Gold turned 18. Those years were showing up in photographs, not words. Silver's face mostly behind the camera, and unlike Gold's keepsake model-pose catalogs, Silvie's picture albums were ambiance, a documentation of the living environment in which she caught some mood or other of the moment, to remind her of a significant occurrence, abstracted to Gold or anyone who wasn't there to share it.
It was, characteristically, devoid of people—showcasing the paraphernalia of Life.
Nope, Silver wasn't writing about self, nor her, and her exploits; nor the now, or then; nor faults or failings really. She wasn't writing about the wrongs of the old man; nor the old woman for that matter. On all this there was plenty to be told, and Gold wondered that she didn't take herself to task. One day. Maybe the publisher would be further interested, on a tangent. A true story of passion, theft, and attempted murders. No, she wasn't writing about the lost brother, the extended family, its purported Mafia ties, and local political doings. That was certainly a relief. It was a large family, and there would be repercussions. Here, and overseas.
She had, if she had to channel her doubts in one direction, the impression that Silvie had emersed herself in some sort of near fiction. Not a future wish, but something in parallel. She could suddenly hear the voice of their maternal grandfather chiding about the great crime of Wasted Time. Like when he chanced to visit on a whim the mansion and spying the walls of the hall lined with books floor to ceiling, hollered, "Who will read all of this Junk?" and then muttered some cliché about the inedibility of the written word, before stomping out with his wallet shut.
That of course was a very long time ago.
Gold needed help, some intervention. She was feeling empty handed and foolish in this errand. She had half an hour to come up with something logical. Something to show. She was meeting the Agent at 3pm.