The attic is eerily still, as if the dust holds its breath midair.  The floor brims with faded cloth boxes, mismatched and frayed.  A discarded photo album, box of old TV remotes from another era, and a few dead batteries litter the creaky maple floorboards under a fake Christmas tree, some of bottom needles missing due to local feline predation.  Time has no meaning here.  All is quiet, like a forgotten museum.
Until there is a light.
The door is slightly ajar, allowing the girl to slip through.  She is tall and slender like I was, but she has a dancer’s frame of grace and poise that I never had.  Her hair is dark and long and her eyes are wide and innocent.  As she pads up the stairs, dollar store flip flops slapping the wood, she is cautious, a quality I probably could have used more of, or perhaps my caution is what held me back.  Peering upwards, she carefully pulls on a cord above.  She seems surprised when a light flickers on, dim, but alive.  Comforted slightly by her newfound visibility, she leaves a shiny tablet on the rusted steel table.  I almost laugh at the juxtaposition of new and old, but for some reason, I restrain myself.  I don’t know why.  No one can hear me, anyway. 
I refocus my attention on her.  She is digging through the boxes now, opening a few before discarding them.  Her fingers linger upon a few photos, dancing on the dusty images, as her eyes search for meaning.  She’ll never know the stories these images tell - the parties, the people, the laughs remain just out of reach behind her pupils.  Deep down, I hope she remembers. 
At the bottom of the heap lies a green fabric box.  She has reached her goal, and a smile lingers in the air but her lips never move.  Rubbing the dirt off the gold tacks on the corners, she pulls off the lid to a cloud of dust.  Coughing quietly, she examines the photos as if she is a shopper looking to buy a piece of family history.  Suddenly, she is a tornado.  Her silver bracelets jangle and catch flashes of light as she whirls around, scanning papers, typing notes, and snapping pictures.  She records all the contents of the box in a few minutes.  She writes my life story in less than a paragraph.
When my hair was red and my eyes bright, I always wondered how I’d be remembered.  I desired interviews and articles online, so people could be inspired by my work.  All successful people have a Wikipedia page, after all.  If you Googled my name, you could learn seemingly everything about me - where I went to high school, when I graduated college, what jobs I’d had.  Was a few stories online my only impact?
A yell breaks my reverie: “Amelia!  Where are you?” 
The voice is distant, but I smile at the familiar sound.
She sighs and rolls her eyes to the gothic-inspired mirror.  “I’m right here, Mom.”
The chandelier flickers as the door reopens.  Light spills in from the hallway and the stairs creak once more.
A middle aged woman examines the scene before her.  Other than a few new strands of silver hair, almost invisible in the shadows, and wrinkles beginning to crawl across her skin, she looks the same.  Her loose dress swirls behind her in the drafty attic.  She sits down, antique rings clinking like a music box melody as she rifles through the photographs. 
Her disdain for technology is evident as she scolds her daughter: “Put away that silly device; it won’t tell you a thing about your grandmother.”
“Mother,” says Amelia, voice dripping with sarcasm and annoyance, “I already know that my grandmother worked for Biotech Resources for thirty one years, where developed the-”
“No, Amelia, you don’t know everything.  For once, just listen to me, because on a rare occasion, I have something meaningful to say.”  Her voice is powerful, filling the room, but she remains calm, “The internet can’t tell you about your grandmother.  It won’t tell you that the secret ingredient to her french toast was oranges, or how she reread The Great Gatsby every Sunday night.  Online, it doesn’t say that always had her nails painted impeccably, or that despite her fortune, she used dollar-off coupons at the grocery store.  She was so generous; she opened her home to us and helped me get through college, even though we weren’t related to her by blood.” 
Her words echo in perfect silence. 
Amelia is frozen in the way that only a teenager who sees her mother break down a little can be.  The seconds of silence feel like a million infinities.
She gives her mother a half-smile of reassurance and whispers, “She sounds like an amazing woman, and I know that she’d be proud of you.”
Her mother half sobs and half laughs, “I forget how grown up you are.”  She looks around the room for a moment, then stands up, “Let’s get out of this creepy cave.  We wouldn’t want any spiders to eat you.”
Amelia giggles and returns my box to the newly reassembled pile.  She spins around, ready to leave.  Silver tears tumble down my old skin, rolling over the valleys and wrinkles from a life well lived.  “No, come back,” I whisper to myself, the words eaten by a mixture of raw laughs and broken sobs, a silent prayer to whatever I never believed in.  Perhaps it’s a coincidence, or perhaps it’s the universe’s apology of sorts, but she uses the edge of her t-shirt to remove the dirt from the side of the box, my box.
The label reads Madeline Thornton. 
She will never forget my name.
With one final look back, she shuts the door.