Once the thought had surfaced, I couldn't push it back down.
My little sister had been persistent at first, wanting to hear embarrassing stories about me. But she must have noticed that my parents and I weren't in the best of moods, because she gradually quieted down. She glanced cautiously at our faces, then ate in silence along with us.
After dinner, I went back to my room and couldn't stop thinking about it.
Childhood... the past...
If I wanted to investigate, my only options were to start with my parents or with people I'd known in the past.
Our family hadn't moved in all these years, but the neighbors around us had changed several times. The current ones had all moved in over the past few years, so they couldn't have known what I was like as a child. I hadn't lived here when I was in elementary school, either. At this point, I couldn't remember where we'd lived before. I only remembered the layout of the house and a few pieces of furniture.
Setting the neighbors aside, my first choice should've been our relatives.
My memories in that area were a little hazy, too.
My maternal grandparents, my paternal grandparents... I'd never met my paternal grandfather; he'd died before I was born. Of the other three, my maternal grandmother had held me as a baby, but she passed away before I could walk or run. My maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother both died around the time I started elementary school. I still remembered their funerals. As for the other relatives... my parents' siblings... they existed, but since my grandparents had died so early, their children rarely got together.
It suddenly hit me that I didn't even have the contact information for any of my uncles, aunts, or other