It all started quite innocently - it was Spring Break vacation from school and Mama and I were bored. Daddy was out of town on business, so we decided on a cleaning project. We were going to straighten the attic, which proved to be a monumental task.

For a while, we looked through trunks, emptied boxes, and tried on old clothes. We could hear birds singing outside, squirrels running on the rooftop and even the babbling of the brook behind our house. We were bonding, which was good for a teenager and her mother.

And then tragedy struck. I knocked over a box from a top shelf and it clattered to the floor with vibrations bordering on the seismic waves of an earthquake. Fluttering above the debris was a single old picture, the edges yellowed with time.

"What is this?" I asked, picking up the photo and glancing curiously at the image of two people standing together in our livingroom. One was clearly a younger version of my mother, and the other a man I had never seen before.

My mother leaned over and looked at the picture in my hand. I heard her gasp audibly, and then she ran from the room.

"Mama," I cried, leaping up from where I was kneeling and head after her. "What's going on?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Mama replied, pointing towards the picture in my hand, and covering her mouth with trembling hands.

I was astonished, looking at my strong beautiful mother turned into a huddled trembling mess. Her shoulder length black hair, peppered with early onset silver, clung damply to her brow. Beautiful moving brown eyes were opened wide in terror.

"Do you have a secret?" I asked, reaching a hand to touch her on the shoulder. She recoiled as though my touch was repugnant - me - her only and beloved child. She had never even spoken harshly to me before, and I felt a creeping sense of dread.

"We all have secrets," she replied in an unusually gruff voice, and glancing at me over a bent shoulder. "Go throw that in the fireplace right now, Karen, and don't look at it."

"Mama, who is he?" I demanded, turning the photo over where I could see it more clearly. The man looked a bit familiar, but I couldn't place his face.

"That's not important," she stated, turning back around where I couldn't see her face. She stumbled to a chair and sat down. I followed and knelt on the carpet in front of her.

"Did he hurt you?" I asked, trying desperately to find the right words to unravel the puzzle that this strange picture had initiated.

Mama lifted her tear stained face and looked me straight in the eyes. She cupped my cheeks in her hands in a gesture she used for tenderness. I could feel the fear in her touch.

"He hurt me in ways you could never comprehend," she replied. "I don't want any part of that man, including the picture, so please throw it in the fire."

"Is he my real father?" I asked, taking a deep uncertain breath. I wasn't quite sure I really wanted to know, but the question begged to be asked.

"No, darling," she replied. "He's mine."

"What did he do?" I asked, touching her hands with mine.

"He was a violent man who never learned to control his temper."

"Where is he now?"

"Where all violent men end up," she said, the cloud passing from her eyes. "Alone."

I put the picture in the fire and walked away.