Turning from the window she looked around her parent's room. There were a few trinkets here and there that she had bought for her mother over the years. Seeing traces of herself in her parent's bedroom - in their personal sanctuary - was a comfort to Meadow. But, not enough to change the course of her actions. No, Meadow was determined to wipe the house clean of every sign or indication that she had ever been a part of the Rask household.  Everything had to go. Nothing could be left behind. It all had to burn. And burn that very afternoon.

Meadow ransacked her parent's bedroom first because she was standing there when this idea took hold and rooted itself in her mind. She pulled open every drawer, rummaged through the shared closet, opened every box and tote until she got her hands on every gift she'd ever given the two of them. She filled a garbage bag with jewellery, clothes, shoes, accessories, hand crafted items, art, and knickknacks. And then she ran that bag down to the burn barrel where she wasted no time throwing it in and setting it ablaze. This was her strategy for her entire purge session - fill a bag, burn a bag.

After her parent's room was picked clean of any trace of her, she hit up her old bedroom, which was filled with childhood memories and mementos. Amazingly, she plowed right through her closet, bookshelves and dresser drawers, which had been filled with all kinds of tokens from her childhood. But, nothing was sacred. Everything had to go. It all had to burn. This was her mantra. So, she worked quickly and steadily until there wasn't a thing left in the 10 X 12 foot room that had anything to do with Meadow then or now. When she was finished with it, the room looked like a poorly decorated and sparse spare room.

Meadow felt nothing. At least, nothing bad as she watched her childhood memories be consumed by blue and orange flames.  It was as if burning these precious items that had once held so much value for her was the most natural and normal thing to do. Was this insanity? Was she taking a tour through Crazyville?  The thought worried her but not enough to change course. Everything had to go. Nothing could be left behind. It all had to burn. And burn that very afternoon. She kept reminding herself.

Time ticked away as she tackled the kitchen and dinning area. Like the two rooms before, she opened every drawer and cupboard and bagged everything she'd ever given her mother or father over the years from a turkey carving knife set, to a slow cooker, and an entire set of Christmas dishes, plus numerous decorations and knickknacks. None of those items were safe from this impromptu cleanse. Nothing was sacred no matter how much her mother had loved it or used it. Everything had to go.  Meadow couldn't let go of this idea - of shaking the place free of any trace she'd ever lived there and been a part of the the family.

And like the rooms before, once she had a garbage bag full, she trotted it out to the burn barrel and tossed it in. Some of the kitchen and dinning room gifts were large and bulky, but they would still break and burn. So, she wasted no time and threw everything in that would go. The kitchen and dinning area couldn't have taken twenty minutes. Meadow was pleased to see she was still on schedule.

When she turned to the living room, with the sprawling sofas, matching side chairs, lamps, end tables, fire place, coffee table, book shelves, wall art, and countless framed family photos, she still had about an hour and a half before her mother was expected to come home. That was plenty of time to riffle through the cabinets, bookshelves, and the cupboards and drawers of the built-in TV wall unit looking for loose photos and photo albums. Photos were the only evidence in the entire family room, which was full of family pictures, that she had once been a valued member of the Rask family.   But, she reminded her self that everything had to go. Nothing could be left behind. It all had to burn. And burn that very afternoon.

The first thing Meadow tackled was the enormous 20X24 family portrait, which hung over the mantle. She pulled a sturdy kitchen chair over to the fireplace and plucked the heavy framed photo from the wall. With a box cutter she found in the kitchen junk drawer, she proceeded, without any hesitation at all, to slice her image out of the sturdy canvas like material. Luckily, she had been standing to the right of her mother in the portrait and could easily remove her image without interfering much with the rest of the portrait. 

Meadow hung the disfigured family portrait back up after she'd cut herself out of it. The wall above the mantel piece was painted eggshell white and when she put the sizable family picture back up on the wall, there was this glaring white ghost on the left hand side of the portrait. As she stepped back and admired her handiwork, truly glad that she had cut her self out of the family picture, she briefly entertained the idea that she might have taken up residence in Crazyville.

But, the thought was fleeting given that she didn't feel crazy. In fact, she felt totally in control, calm and perfectly at ease. She wasn't crying. She wasn't hysterical. She wasn't feeling any emotions at all. Well, except for a growing sense of satisfaction every time she took a bag out to the burn barrel and dumped it in.

Meadow stuffed the cut out of herself in a new garbage bag and then began the tedious job of working her way through all the small mounted and free-standing framed photos on the walls and shelves around the room. Plucking her picture out of the frames was time consuming. And in some case, Meadow just tossed the picture, frame and all, into the garbage bag.

Afterwards, she dove into the cupboards looking for the family photo albums. Her mother had dozens of them all organized by year and child. Meadow threw the albums with her name on them into the garbage. She didn't even bother to open them up. It would kill her mother. Meadow knew it. But she didn't care enough to stop. She didn't have any strong feelings about her mother at the moment. There was just this dull, vague sense of betrayal that lingered in the back of her mind. Noora Rask had proved to Meadow by her silence these last three and half years that she would rather appease her husband then let Meadow know she had a half brother.

To ensure that she did not succumb to a weak moment, Meadow ran the photos and photo albums she'd collected of herself out to the burn barrel. Without the slightest hesitation she threw the entire bag into the hot, burning barrel. The flames consumed it and produced copious amounts of black smoke from the newest offering. Meadow congratulated herself, as she walked back to the house, for not letting sentimentality ruin her objective. Everything had to go. Nothing could be left behind. It all had to burn. And burn that very afternoon.

It was close to four thirty now. Meadow was running out of time. Her mother would be home soon. But, Meadow still had a few drawers in the TV stand to go through. They hosted thousands of loose photos from the last ten years - photos that had yet to make it into one of Noora's albums. And Meadow was sure she'd appear in a handful of them from summer breaks and Christmas. The photos, though loose, were organized in the drawers in chronological order because Noora Rask was meticulous about her family photos. And it didn't take Meadow long to find a few photos from each year that pertained to her. She dutifully set them aside to burn.

And in the last drawer, she discovered the jackpot of all pictures. It was filled with pictures of Eddie with the family, which totalled hundreds of shots over the last three and half (or more) years.  Meadow snapped them up and brought them to the coffee table where she laid them out in piles according to the date stamps on the photos.

These photos would tell her more about Eddie and what had taken place in the last three or four years, than anything she could get out of her brothers or her father. They wouldn't just fill in gaps, they would tell the whole story. How often did Eddie get together with the family over the years? What sort of events was he invited to? How close had he become with everyone? And how many family events did Meadow miss out on because Eddie was in the picture and no one wanted her to know?

Meadow plucked the few Christmas photos of herself from these years and rushed all the loose pictures of her down to the barrel in her hands. There weren't enough of them over the last ten years to require a bag. She could hold them all in her arms easily, pinned to her chest, as she skipped down the deck stairs and launched them, without a thought, into the flames. She didn't wait to watch them burn. All she could think about was heading back into the house and pouring over the hundreds of pics she found of Eddie in the few private minutes she had left before her mother came home.  

At the patio door she pulled out her cell phone from her pocket and checked the time. It was ten to five. Her mother could arrive home any minute. Meadow scanned the living room one last time. Was there anything she missed? The place looked like a bomb had gone off in it. It was hard to tell if there was anything of hers left in the place because of the mess she'd made.

But, feeling confident that she'd managed to burn every last trace of herself upstairs and down, she eagerly closed the sliding glass door and plopped herself down on the couch in front of the coffee table where she'd left the pictures of Eddie in neat little piles. She picked up the smallest and earliest pile of photos.

It was just half a dozen pics of Eddie and her father, dated the summer and autumn the year before his 60th birthday. The pictures were all taken out in the front yard by the rose garden in summer and by the beautiful Burning Bush in fall. Eddie looked uncomfortable in the summer pictures but more at ease in the later ones. Her father was positively beaming in all the pictures. She'd never seen him look so elated.

She set that pile aside and grabbed the next. It was dated three years ago. It was the year of his 60th birthday, which was in April. There were a few pictures of Eddie and her father together leading up to the birthday, but none of Eddie with the boys or anyone else in the family until the 60th birthday party at the Greek place.

Then, there was an explosion of family shots - pictures of Eddie with their Dad, with each of the boys separately, pictures just the three boys, pics of all four men together, then pictures of the entire family, Eddie included, which must have been taken by one of the patrons at the restaurant that evening. Everyone looked like they were having the time of their lives. Meadow had never seen so many consecutive photos of her father grinning ear from ear. She didn't know he could smile with his whole face. 

After the party, there were all kinds of spring, summer, fall and pre-Christmas photos of Eddie hanging out with the family. Pictures of him meeting Forrest's wolfhounds and going out on the the Pearl. Shots of him fixing a fence at River's place and the kids trying to feed him peanut butter and jam sandwiches. There were pics of him sitting in their Dad's favourite lounger here in the living room and working on the old tractor which Niko could never keep going. Toward the end of the year, there were even pictures of Eddie standing beside Meadow's Mom with his arm draped casually over her shoulder as the two of them modelled Santa hats and felt reindeer antlers.

Meadow put the pile on the coffee table and reached for the next. It was more of the same, but now he was sleeping over, driving Forrest's boat, hanging with the sister-in-laws, mowing the lawn, building bonfires and making smores, riding the family horses with Noora or Niko at different times, playing with the niece and nephew here at the house, helping put up Christmas lights and even the Christmas tree. He was a fully integrated member of the family that year.

The last two piles, the one from the previous year and the pictures that would have been taken that current year, Meadow didn't touch. She just stared at them. She hadn't felt much all afternoon, but now, she felt a little unsettled. She didn't think she was angry. And she was sure she wasn't anywhere near tears. But, she didn't feel right either. So, she sat and stared at the two final piles trying to figure out if she needed more answers, or if she'd had enough now.

While she was in this flux state, not sure whether to get up and walk away or to keep on flipping through the rest of the pictures, she heard her mother scream and River let out a few shocked exclamations. Meadow hadn't heard them drive up the driveway or even open the front door. She turned around on the couch and gave them both a big grin.

"Meadow, what's happened? Have we been robbed?" her mother asked as she waded through a lifetime of possessions that were spilled all over the floor and flowing from every open drawer and closet door. "Quick River, call 911," she instructed her son.

Meadow got up on her knees and leaned over the top of the plush grey couch. "You are alright Mom. There hasn't been a break-in. No one has robbed the place," she assured her with a bright smile.

Her mother, whose eyes were looking everywhere but at Meadow, as she surveyed the great effects of the tornado that must have passed through the house to leave such a chaotic trail of goods, grabbed River's arm to help hold her up. She was feeling faint. Something was terribly off with this place. She looked back at Meadow who was grinning at her still, and that's when he eyes caught sight of the family portrait above the fire place. She gave a great gasp of shock and River had to catch her quickly as her legs began to give out on her.

"What is it Mom?" he asked with alarm. "What's wrong?" he cast Meadow a vile look as he set their mother down on the bench that flanked the wall between the dinning room and living space. Meadow was to blame. This mess had to be her doing. He was infuriated that she would take a tantrum like this in their mother's house all because no one told her about Eddie. She was so unreasonable and it made him want to lash out.

Noora closed her eyes and took a few deep, calming breaths. Her heart was racing and her mind was in a panic. Meadow knew about Eddie! How did she find out? Who told her? Had she confronted Niko? Is that why the place was such a mess? Did they fight? Did it get physical? She prayed to God it hadn't even as her heart was breaking. She looked up at River's angry countenance and frowned. She petted his arms gently and that brought his attention right back to her.

"Are you okay Mom? Can I get you anything? Do anything?" He wanted to offer to march Meadow straight out of the house and bolt the door behind her, but knew his mother would not agree.

Noora let go of River and turned to face her daughter, who still had a silly, child-like grin on her face. Noora lifted a finger and pointed to the family portrait asking, "What happened there?"

Meadow jumped up from the couch, scooped up all the pictures of Eddie from the coffee table and sauntered over to her mother and River with a pleasant smile on her face. She looked over her shoulder once at the great white ghost in the family portrait and giggled. It did look ridiculous. They were certainly going to have to take it down. They couldn't keep that monstrosity up. What would the neighbours think when they came for tea and BBQs?

"Oh, that's nothing," Meadow said in a cheerful voice. "You should see the rest of the house and the burn barrel." She grinned at both her mother and brother whose faces had gone grey.

River made a move for the deck doors, but Noora called him back with a sharp, "Don't." He stopped mid stride and turned to look back at her. "Just stay put," she told him as she turned her attention back to Meadow, who looked amused.

"What happened here Meadow? Did you and your father fight?" Noora asked calmly.

"Nope. We had a very cordial conversation. Why don't you ask me something important, Mom?" meadow hinted while still grinning.

"Something important?" her mother repeated softly. She looked confused, but she was really just stalling for time. This had to be about Eddie. Noora was sure of it. But she was so ashamed of herself, of her part in keeping the secret from Meadow, that she couldn't bring herself to say his name.

Meadow's grin soured and was replaced by a cold look. She stepped forward, lifted her hands filled with photos above her mother's head and then let those photos rain down on the woman. Nearly four years of photos, totalling in the hundreds, fell helter skelter all around Noora, the bench and the floor.

"Meadow!" River sharply barked at her, incensed by her disrespect. He reached out to grab her arm and pull her away from their mother, but Meadow had other ideas. She slapped him hard across the face and stunned them all - even Meadow herself.

River gasped and stepped back as he raised a hand to cup his cheek, which burned from the harsh contact. The slap shocked him and took all the anger and indignation out of him. He was left feeling hurt and betrayed. How could Meadow raise a hand to him? What had he ever done to her? And a small voice, from somewhere deep in his mind said, but hide a half brother from her for nearly four years.

He looked to his mother, who with trembling fingers was picking up the scattered pictures. She was crying as she collected the pictures, and whispering over and over again, "I'm so sorry, Darling." Darling was one of her pet names for Meadow. She never used it on another family member. River took a closer look at the pictures to see what she was sorry about. It was Eddie. The pictures were all of him.

River looked up and around the room. He walked all around and it didn't take him long to see what Meadow was up to. He then went to the patio doors and peered out at the burn barrel, which was still producing flames and black smoke. Quietly, without a word to his mother, he walked upstairs and checked every room. Like downstairs, the place looked like someone had ransacked it. All except for Meadow's room. It looked very tidy and very empty.

She hadn't destroyed the house like he initially thought. She'd just destroyed everything of hers, or everything to do with her. He thought of the disfigured family picture above the mantel. Meadow had spent the afternoon cutting herself out of the family. River sank down on the bed and felt ill, really and truly ill. He wanted to blame her. He wanted to say she was overreacting. But he knew in his heart that they were at fault. He was at fault. He should never have kept this from her. He should have told her about Eddie the moment he knew.  How could he, how could the family, ever make this right?