Look at this photograph
She was rummaging through Peter’s stuff in the familiar way everyone does when you’re supposed to be cleaning or packing and almost everything turns out to be a distraction you spend at least fifteen minutes pondering. She got her hands on a pile of photo albums and leafed through them absentmindedly until she got to the final page of the last album. It was a picture taken with self-timer at Lake Whatsitsname, concluding of Peter, MJ and Peni in front of their tent. Lighting was all wrong, but you could see their smiling faces in the glow of the campfire. The photo was a couple of years old and there were no newer ones, but she did not need one to remember the pain in her heart when she saw her brother the last time in the courtroom. He’d always been a geeky kid growing up, but also insisted on keeping in shape, sort of a rebel-boy-scout-type. Upon called to receive his judgement, all he had was a figure that suggested that if he had had any muscles it was quite the time ago. His brothers most prominent features at the time seemed to be his round midsection and droopy, unkempt hair. He seemed almost unable to speak or move, besides of odd little spasms, of which she later realized that Peter was heavily sedated at the court. The judge sentenced him for 6 years in a low-security ward for manslaughter.
Hot heavy tears run down Gwen’s face when she closed the photo album. She knew it was time to go meet her brother in prison.