The Woman in the Photo

by Mary Hogan

  “No need to waste money on dormant oil,” Gene said. “You can make your own with canola and baking soda.”

  Without a clue what he was talking about, Elizabeth grinned idiotically. Gene grabbed a cider glass and took a large, loud swallow. Had elegant Elizabeth Haberlin married someone like him?

  Setting his own glass back on the tray, York asked Gene, “Any chance I can get a tour of your workshop? I’m a bit of a carpenter. In my dreams, anyway.”

  When Gene Eggar pulled himself out of his chair and left the room, Elizabeth wanted to kiss York on the lips.

  “Call us when lunch is ready,” Gene said over his shoulder. With York on his heels, he made his way to the rear door without looking back at Elizabeth once.

  “He hates me,” Elizabeth said as soon as they were out of earshot. She sipped her cider and felt the cool, sweet liquid stream down her throat.

  Vida stood and walked over to the fireplace. Picking up a framed photograph, she brought it to the couch where Elizabeth sat.

  “He can’t even see you. He only sees her.”

  There she was.

  Elizabeth took the photo into her shaky grip. She looked down and couldn’t believe her eyes. Wearing Capri jeans and a spaghetti-strap top, was a woman with her face and build. Tall, slim. The woman stood in front of a brick wall and stared at the lens as if she were looking straight through it. Her smile was faint, yet intense; her eyes and brows were as dark as coal. There were two peaks in her upper lip. Her jaw was a jutting right angle. An ebony mane tumbled messily down her back. A profound sadness emanated from those eyes. Elizabeth wondered, Was I already growing inside of her?

  “Freaky, isn’t it?” Vida said.

  “She seems so, so—”

  “Intense? Yeah, Vera felt everything deeply. Too deeply.” Then she added, “That photo was probably taken in the morning. Vera never fully woke up before noon.”

  Elizabeth stared at the picture. At the woman she’d wondered about since she was old enough to wonder. There, in her hands, was a photograph of the person who created her, carried her inside for nearly a year, cradled her in arms—for a minute or two, at least. There, at last, was the mother who had first counted her long fingers and toes, examined every inch of her face in search of similarities. My eyelashes. My nose. Elizabeth breathed in the moment, eighteen years in the making. She waited for the magical connection to transport her into the picture, next to her birth mother. She braced herself for the jolt of cellular attachment.

  Yet she felt something else entirely.

  Here is a relative who looks like me.

  A relative. Not a mother. Valerie Parker was her mother. The morning person with light eyes and blond hair and a disposition as sunny as Southern California.

  Maybe DNA wasn’t destiny after all.

  Vida sat next to her on the couch. She leaned forward and pulled open a drawer in the coffee table. She retrieved an old photo album. It smelled like a vintage purse. It opened with a cracking sound. On the first page was a wedding photo. The bride wore a simple white gown with a gathered skirt that dusted the floor in a plain ruffle. Flowing down the back of her head was a long veil topped with wispy white flowers. She held a petite bouquet of asters. The black vest of her husband’s suit was buttoned high. His stiff color was fastened with a white bow tie.

  Elizabeth sucked in a breath. She pressed her palm against her chest. Now she felt a connection. There was the woman in the photo—the familiar face and body she’d seen in her adoption file. The blood relative who had started it all: Elizabeth Haberlin. Next to her new husband, Eugene.

  “Eugene Eggar’s entire family was killed in the flood,” Vida said, softly. “His young sister, Elsie, his parents. They never even found his mother’s body. Which wasn’t that unusual. More than seven hundred and fifty people were so mutilated by the barbed wire and glass and stuff barreling down on them, they were never able to be identified. Lots of poor souls were buried so deeply in the mud no one ever got to them.”

  “You mean—?”

  “Off Millcreek Road is the Johnstown cemetery. There’s a Plot of the Unknown there. But no one knows who may still be beneath our feet.”

  Elizabeth’s forehead creased in sadness. Vida pointed to other old snapshots. “That’s their son, Silas. And their daughter, Victoria.” She looked up. “You know we’re Jewish, right?”

  “Right.” Elizabeth nodded. “Ashkenazi.”

  Vida’s eyebrows peaked. “I’m impressed. You’re Jewish, too?”

  Elizabeth laughed. “I’m not very good at it yet.”

  “Me neither. A seder at Passover is about it.”

  Ah yes, Elizabeth thought. The bitter herbs, ground-up fruit-and-nut paste, middle matzo.

  “I was named after Victoria Eggar, and your mother—”

  “Birth mother.”

  “Yes. Sorry. Your birth mother was named after Vera Sinclair. You, of course, were named after her.” She pointed to a photograph of Elizabeth Haberlin’s back as she sat at a piano. Dressed in a dark color, her waist cinched, her spine upright, Elizabeth Haberlin rested both hands expertly on the keys. Her dark hair was wound neatly in a braided bun. On her wrist, a diamond bracelet sparkled in the light from the window beside her.

  Elizabeth Parker knew this woman in the photo as clearly as she knew herself. The stillness of playing piano, the need for good posture, the ability to shut everything else out as you played. She fingered the vintage bracelet on her own wrist—the one she never took off. This woman in the photo was her. On the inside. The other woman, Vera—her birth mother—had similar features. But Elizabeth Haberlin—her namesake—had passed down her soul.

  “Great-great-great,” Elizabeth said, almost to herself.

  “Isn’t it?”

  With a smile, Elizabeth explained, “I’d been wondering if Elizabeth Haberlin was my great-great-grandmother, or great-great-great.”

  “Oh.” Vida laughed. “Yeah. Great-great-great. And she really was. Elizabeth Haberlin was extraordinary.”

  Finally, Elizabeth Parker found her peep.

  From the kitchen, a timer went ping. Vida leaped up. “Lunch is calling.” Elizabeth shut the photo album and rose to her feet, too. As she followed Vida out of the living room, she stopped by the window.

  “This is it, isn’t it?”

  Vida turned around and nodded. “It’s a bit clinky. No one has played it, or tuned it, in years.”

  “Mind if I try?”

  “I’d love it.” She grabbed a chair.

  Elizabeth sat before the old upright piano and rested her fingers lightly on the yellowed ivory keys. She felt Elizabeth Haberlin’s energy in her fingertips. With her back rigid and her neck elongated, she played Giovanni Marradi’s “Just for You.” Her favorite.

  CHAPTER 53

  JOHNSTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA

  Present

  The smell of roasted garlic and lemons saturated the Eggar kitchen. Elizabeth set the table while Vida stood before the open oven door to suck pan juices into a baster and squeeze them over the mound of crackling brown skin.

  “You live here with your dad?” Elizabeth asked.

  “For better and worse.” Vida sighed. “I’m afraid there’s no one else. I never married and I have no kids. Dad, well, he won’t admit it, but he needs help. Without me, he would sit in that chair and starve. So, there you go. You do what you have to do. What about you? Brothers? Sisters?”

  “One brother. Scott. He’s twelve years older. A rebel. Right now he’s living off the grid in Idaho. And my dad, well, let me just say that my mom is the only person who stuck around.”

  Looking slightly stung, Vida shut the oven door and hurried to the sink to rip lettuce for a salad. Just then, the screen door creaked open.

  “Gotta oil that,” Gene tossed over his shoulder as both men entered the kitchen. “Smells ready,” he said to his daughter. To York he added, “Bathroom is second door on the right.”

  Without another word, the two m
en left to wash up. In a low voice, Elizabeth said, “He still hates me.”

  “He—” At the sink, Vida searched for the right words. In a whisper, she said, “Let’s just say you’re a reminder.”

  “Not a happy reminder of his daughter?”

  Vida shook her head no. After glancing down the hall, she whispered, “Dad did exactly what Elizabeth Haberlin’s family did. He disowned my sister. When she got pregnant, he kicked her out. When she needed him most, he turned his back on her. I was in college at the time, in Pittsburgh. I never should have left her alone.”

  “Alone?” Elizabeth asked. “What about my birth dad?”

  Vida snorted. “That jerk took off the moment he found out about you. I don’t even know his name. Vera told me they met at the Cambria County Fair. My sister, well, she didn’t always make wise decisions.”

  Sporting a happy-go-lucky grin, York bounded into the kitchen and inhaled. “I have died and gone to heaven.”

  Elizabeth felt a wave of warmth for her newly declared boyfriend. Having him with her was the wisest decision she’d ever made. Never had she met anyone so comfortable in his own skin. That boy could be at home anywhere . . . except, perhaps, his own parents’ home that was overstuffed with their expectations.

  Incredibly—though it was only the second time they’d been together in the flesh—Elizabeth felt like she’d known York forever. The previous week, with Elizabeth on the West Coast and York on the East, they had pressed their FaceTime screens against their hearts to hear them beating in sync. How had she gotten so lucky?

  Like a thundercloud, Gene blew into the kitchen and frowned. “Don’t burn that bird,” he said.

  Too brightly, Vida chirped, “Okay, then. Elizabeth, will you please pour the dressing on the salad while I get the chicken out of the oven? And, Dad, will you do the honors?”

  “I’ll need to sharpen a knife.”

  “It’s sharp enough, Dad. York, could you please bring our cider glasses in from the living room.”

  With a nod, York scampered off. Vida darted around the small kitchen like a chipmunk scurrying from nut to tree. She pulled the chicken out of the oven, forked it onto a cutting platter, grabbed tongs for the salad, handed them to Elizabeth. York returned carrying four glasses of cider in his two hands. “Don’t worry,” he said to Elizabeth’s alarmed expression, “I know which glass belongs to which person.”

  Vida laughed. “Vera was a germophobe, too.”

  With a large knife in one hand and a big fork in the other, Gene looked momentarily confused. “Cut as many pieces as you can, Dad,” Vida said. “Here, York, let me take those glasses. I’ll pour fresh. Elizabeth, why don’t you sit here. York, there.”

  Amid the scraping of chair legs across linoleum, they sat. Vida set the salad bowl in the center of the table. She brought four new glasses from the cupboard and filled them with fresh cider from the fridge. In concentrated silence, Gene carved up the chicken. York gently squeezed Elizabeth’s knee under the table. For a long minute, no one said a word. They scooped salad onto their plates and oohed and aahed over how good it all looked.

  “Might as well tell her,” Gene said, abruptly. “It’s her past, too.”

  Elizabeth’s breath stopped short. Her gaze shifted left, then right. From Gene to Vida. And back again. Gene set the carving utensils down and sat. With his own fork, he stabbed a piece of breast meat and set it on his plate. Then he reached for the salad bowl. Vida asked York, “Leg? Thigh?”

  “I’m a thigh man,” he said, his white teeth gleaming.

  “Tell me what?” Elizabeth asked.

  As Gene chewed with his head down, Vida looked exasperated. “Can we please just have a pleasant lunch?”

  “No time like the present,” Gene blurted with his mouth full.

  York accepted the chicken thigh, then set about eating it earnestly. Elizabeth stared at Vida. “I’d like to know, really,” she said. “Whatever it is.”

  With a loud sigh, Vida adjusted her silverware. She shot her dad a look. “Okay, then.” She took a fortifying sip of cider. “What dad is talking about, well, my sister, your birth mother, she had, um, issues. She was depressed. She’d always been sort of dark. Even as a kid, she was permanently braced for disaster.”

  Elizabeth felt her cheeks flush.

  “Medication helped,” Vida went on. “But not enough. And after you were born, well, there was postpartum depression on top of everything el—”

  “Oh.” As if a ray of sunlight had just illuminated a cobwebby corner, Elizabeth suddenly saw clearly. “She drowned herself, didn’t she?”

  York’s head shot up as Gene and Vida examined their plates.

  “Yes,” Vida said quietly.

  Strangely, Elizabeth felt as though she’d known all along. “Where?”

  “Where?”

  “Where did it happen? Where did she do it?”

  “Portland, Maine. I have no idea why she chose there.”

  Gene stabbed another piece of chicken.

  “Somebody saw her climb onto a cliff with you,” Vida said.

  “I was with her?”

  Vida nodded. “You were a baby, wrapped in a blanket. A witness saw the whole thing. He said he couldn’t be sure, but it looked like she was about to jump. With you in her arms.”

  The only noise besides Elizabeth’s involuntary gasp was the scraping of Gene’s knife and fork on his plate. He never once looked up. York, too, chewed his chicken in silence.

  “But she didn’t do it, Elizabeth. I mean, obviously. She didn’t jump with you. She set you down. She saved you.”

  Again, York reached his hand under the table to squeeze Elizabeth’s knee. Almost in a whisper, Vida added, “Her body washed ashore about a mile away. But they quickly found you on top of that cliff, tucked into the hollow of a rock.”

  “A lawyer called me,” Gene grumbled, now jabbing at his salad. “Damn lawyers.”

  Vida forced a smile. “She was thorough, my sister. She’d set things up.”

  “Didn’t want me to have you,” Gene said, coldly.

  “She’d already signed adoption papers, hired a lawyer and everything. Explicit instructions were found in your blanket. A closed adoption. She didn’t want you to know about her. She didn’t want you to feel like you were genetically cursed.”

  Those two words hung in the air. Genetically cursed. Was she? Did the fact that she, too, was always braced for disaster mean that she was doomed to crumple under the weight of life?

  “Vera insisted that her favorite photo was included in your adoption file. It was taken after the flood. Elizabeth Haberlin standing with Clara Barton.”

  “I saw that photo!”

  “My sister loved that picture because it captured the resilience and determination of women. She wanted her daughter to take after Elizabeth Haberlin, not her. She wanted you to survive all the disasters that life will throw at you.”

  Elizabeth sat back in her chair. Her emotions were tangled into a hairball. Her birth mother had gotten what she wanted. Elizabeth did feel more connected to Elizabeth Haberlin than to her. Maybe she would emerge from her current crisis better than she was before. The idea of it cheered her. But, more than anything, she felt incredibly grateful. Her stormy birth mother had given her an amazing gift: Her sunny mom, Valerie.

  “Did you make dessert?” Gene asked, done.

  “Elizabeth hasn’t even started her lunch, Dad.”

  “Oh.” He sighed, gruffly.

  Elizabeth smiled at her grandfather. Picking up her fork, she reached for the platter to stab a leg.

  That was that. Now she knew.

  For the remainder of their lunch, they chatted amiably about droughts and floods and ice storms and blistering sunlight that never let up.

  CHAPTER 54

  JOHNSTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA

  Present

  One train in from Pittsburgh in the morning, one train out at dinnertime. After the chicken had been consumed down to its carcass, Eli
zabeth and York still had hours to kill. But they said their good-byes long before it was time to meet the six P.M. Pennsylvanian back to the city that sat proudly over the confluence of the Ohio, the Allegheny, and the Monongahela rivers. There was a lot to see in downtown Johnstown.

  After lunch, Gene grunted farewell.

  “Cordless drill is the only power tool a city dweller needs,” he said to York. To Elizabeth, he said, “Now you know all that’s worth knowing.” Then he shuffled back to his chair.

  Before they left the house, Vida took Elizabeth aside and said, “I have one more thing to show you.” Scooping up her niece’s hand, she quickly led her upstairs. In her bedroom, with its ornate ironwork bed frame and dark wood dresser, Vida opened a jewelry box and pulled out a roll of velvet. In the velvet’s unfurling, a diamond bracelet was revealed. Its rose-cut diamonds sent flickers of light bouncing about the room.

  “This initially belonged to Elizabeth Haberlin’s grandmother. She took her own life, too.”

  “Wasn’t Elizabeth Haberlin wearing this in the photo I just saw? The one at the piano?”

  “Yes. She wore it everywhere. She never took it off,” Vida said.

  Elizabeth glanced down at her own wrist. Her own heirloom.

  “This bracelet has been in our family for generations,” Vida said. “Now I want you to have it. Vera would want you to have it.”

  Elizabeth took a step back, stunned. “It’s beautiful, but I can’t accept it. Thank you, but no.”

  “I don’t have any heirs. I’m the last of our line. And it’s too sentimental to sell.”

  “Sorry. I can’t.” Elizabeth made a motion for the door. Not wanting to hurt Vida’s feelings, she didn’t voice the thought in her head: I have my own bracelet, from my own grandmother.

  Vida sighed. “I’ll save it for you, then.” She rewrapped the velvet. “One day you may have a daughter who wants a connection to your past.”

  Before Elizabeth left the room, Vida said, “One more minute.” Then she walked over to a shelf by the window and pulled out a manila envelope. “Will you at least take this?”