Shadow of a Life

by Mute80

  “Hmm . . . she came over and brought a Christmas gift in December so I guess it’s been five or six months.”

  “Wow. That’s a long time. I’m sorry.”

  I looked up quickly. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m used to it. Besides, my parents don’t get along very well so it’s best if she stays away. They do okay if she only comes around once in a great while.”

  “I still feel sorry for you. I know your dad works a lot and you probably get lonely.”

  I shrugged.

  “Does your dad ever date? Do you think he’d ever consider getting remarried?”

  I laughed. “My parents are still married and Dad is very proper. Dating would require him to be officially divorced and I don’t know that he would ever do that. I’m sure he still loves my mom. Deep down I think she must still love him, too, because she’s never asked for a divorce. Why are we only talking about me, though? I’m not the only one who’s constantly being abandoned.”

  “What’re you saying?”

  “I’m saying that your parents ditch you all the time, too.”

  “Maybe so, but my parent’s problem is that they’re still madly, deeply in love. Sometimes I think they’d rather be alone all the time without having me around.”

  “Well aren’t we just a sorry lot of orphans,” I joked.

  “I guess we’ll just have to stick with each other then.”

  “I’m okay with that.”

  He smiled at me over the big box he was tearing into. “Oh, wow, Jamie, look at this.”

  I stood up and had to pause for a minute to steady myself. I shook my legs one at a time, trying to wake them up from the sleep I’d put them in by kneeling for so long. He scooted the box closer to me and I folded back the flaps.

  “Yes. This is what I’ve been hoping for.”

  The entire box was full of letters. Most of them were in coarse envelopes and were brittle with age. I could see right away that they were addressed to various Goodwins.

  “I bet we’ll learn so much from these.”

  I glanced at the remaining boxes and wondered if we should finish going through them or start reading the letters. There were only five or six boxes left and I decided we should just get all the work done in the attic at once, but I was anxious to get to the box of letters.

  It was in the final box that I found it. I pulled out a book with old black and white photos and newspaper clippings pasted inside. The pages were full and the book could barely stay shut. There had to be generations of photographs and memorabilia inside. I stood to show Peter and one of the photos slipped out of the book, falling to the attic floor. I bent to pick it up and gasped as I saw the picture. My hands were shaking when I finally dared touch it. The black and white photograph was small, maybe two inches by three inches and curved slightly around the edges. Looking back at me from the paper were the serious faces of a man, a woman, and a girl of about thirteen or fourteen years. The girl was a younger version of the one I knew, but there was no doubt in my mind that I was looking at Sophia. I turned the picture over and in a flowing script was written Jeremiah, Elsa, and Sophia Goodwin— December 1883.

  “Peter.” My voice caught in my throat as I squeaked the one word I could actually get out. He looked up from the box he was closing and saw me standing above him holding out a picture. He looked at my face, noted the concern, and took the picture from my trembling hands. He flipped on his flashlight and trained the bright beam at the old print, staring at it for what felt like an eternity.

  “This is it, Jamie. This is our connection.”

  I nodded.

  “Now I guess we just need to figure out what to do with this knowledge.”

  I nodded again.

  “You don’t look like you’re very happy with this information. I thought you’d be excited that we had a lead.”

  I sat down on the nearest box. “I would be excited, but Peter, this find means that it was my family and my ancestors that did this unspeakable thing to Sophia.” My voice shook a little as I said her name.

  Peter stood in a flash and stepped over to where I sat on one of the dusty boxes. He took both of my hands in his and crouched down in front of me. “Jamie, do not do this to yourself. You had nothing to do with what happened to Sophia. Of everyone she’s ever known, you are the one who is helping her the most. Don’t blame yourself for something that was done ages ago. Besides, you don’t even know yet how closely Jeremiah and Elsa are related to you. For all you know they could be twelfth cousins or something. I’m sure if we all dug around, we would find that we all have ghosts in our family tree—I mean—well, you know what I mean.” He squeezed my hands for emphasis.

  “I know what you’re saying is true, but I still feel bad. Now more than ever I want to help Sophia.”

  “Good. Let’s carry all the letters and papers downstairs and we can go through it down there. Okay?”

  “Yeah. Sounds good.” I stood and reached for one of the boxes we’d set aside, but Peter reached out and gently laid his hand on my shoulder before I could pick it up.

  “Actually, can I ask for one thing first?”

  “Hmm . . . depends on what it is.”

  “I’ve been dying to go out on the widow’s walk. Can we go out there for just a minute?”

  I laughed. “Sure. Just don’t fall off or my dad will kill me.”

  We unlatched the tall window and stepped out onto the small balcony.

  “I bet I can see my house from here.”

  We both looked in the direction of Peter’s street and sure enough, we could just make out the roof of his home a few blocks away. It was a beautiful June afternoon and the sun shone brightly on everything below us. Trees and yards were fully green after their winter’s nap and the world was alive with color. We could hear children laughing somewhere below and I remembered spending summers—when Dad was home—on my swing set in the backyard. Camille had a trampoline and we would spend hours and hours jumping on it, seeing who could bounce the highest. I always won and Camille was always upset. Peter leaned over the small railing and looked away from me.

  “How come we haven’t hung out with each other much in the past?”

  “I don’t know. I guess we just never took the time.”

  He turned back toward me and slowly slid his arms around my waist. I looked at him with surprise as my heart thumped in my chest. He pulled me closer to him until our faces were just inches apart. I didn’t know what to do with my hands so I rested them on his chest.

  I knew what was going to happen and my whole body felt as if it would melt at any second. Finally, when I thought I might die of anticipation, Peter leaned forward and kissed me. It was a small, gentle kiss. There was nothing demanding about it and it only lasted for a second. We smiled at each other, laughed a little, and then holding my hand, he helped me step back into the attic through the window. There were no words exchanged—there didn’t need to be.

  We carried all the stuff we’d kept out for further inspection down to the dining room table. It took us two trips. We thought it would be best to start with the letters since they’d probably contain the most information. We laid them out in order of the dates they were written as best we could. I grabbed a notebook and pen so that we could jot down anything that seemed important or interesting. Peter started reading the letters with the latest dates first since they were most likely to be from people closely related to me. I took notes.

  The first letters were written to my grandmother. It must have been before she’d married my grandfather because they were still addressed to Betsy Goodwin rather than her married name of Betsy Calder. Most of them were from childhood friends, and didn’t contain anything important. A few were from cousins who lived in various states across the eastern seaboard. Betsy Goodwin’s family lived near Boston at the time most of the first letters were written.

  As we progressed through the stack we started finding letters addressed to Betsy’s parents. Again, most of these letters were f
rom family that lived elsewhere. I’d decided to make a genealogical chart of sorts in the back of the notebook I was using so that we could keep track of the barrage of names coming at us. So much of the handwriting was flowery and faded that it took both of us to interpret some of the words. I felt like a genuine detective.

  About midway through the box we came across the first mention of Jeremiah and Elsa. It was addressed to Betsy’s father Henry (my great-grandfather) and was written by his older sister, Genevieve Goodwin Slate. The date at the top was July 17, 1926.

  Dearest Brother,

  It was so lovely to receive the last letter you wrote to me. It brings me great pleasure to know that you are well. Please give your sweet wife and baby hugs from Aunt Gen. My little family is faring well, too, and we hope to be in our new home by fall. James works hard on it every day. You will need to come stay with us for a while once the work is complete.

  You might be interested to know that I was recently given an old sea trunk that belonged to father’s cousins, Jeremiah and Elsa Goodwin. Do you remember them? I recall meeting them once as a very young girl, perhaps five or six. You might not have been old enough to remember that day. Anyway, it seems that they both passed many years ago, so the trunk was brought here and left by an elderly man whose name I did not catch. He said I was the nearest kin to them that he could find and thought I should have their trunk. It is locked and perhaps one day James will find enough time to open it for me. I found it to be a strange incident and thought you might get a laugh from it. I hope all is well and that your family is having a wonderful summer.

  Love always, Genevieve Goodwin Slate

  “I would love to know what was in that trunk,” Peter said as he folded the letter and put it back in its aging envelope.

  “Me, too. I wonder if any other letters will say.”

  He shuffled through the letters and shook his head. “The rest of the ones we haven’t read yet are dated before the letter that mentioned the trunk. I don’t think we’re going to find anything else about it.”

  “Darn.”

  “Let’s keep reading though. We might find something else important.”

  Apparently Genevieve had a passion for writing letters, because we had to make our way through a great number of ramblings about her children and husband before we got to letters from the previous generation. The stack of letters was beginning to dwindle before we finally found another one that mentioned Jeremiah and Elsa.

  It was written by Henry and Genevieve’s father Phillip and it was addressed to someone by the name of Sally Hart. For some reason it had never actually been sent to the recipient. I wondered who she was, but I never did get an answer. The best guess I had from the wording in the letter was that she too was a distant cousin of Jeremiah and Elsa.

  Dear Sally,

  Congratulations on the arrival of your new child. We wish you and your little one the best of health in the days to come. I am happy to share the news that Laura has accepted the offer of my hand in marriage and her father has agreed as well. We shall be married sometime in the fall if all goes as planned. She is a lovely girl and I couldn’t be luckier. Father has been keeping me busy on the farm and I fear I might never get a break to enjoy the fine spring weather we have been having here.

  We were recently visited by our cousins, Jeremiah and Elsa Goodwin. They are surely a strange couple. I recall father taking me to visit them when I was about fourteen and they had a beautiful daughter. I believe Sophia was her name. She was friendly enough and I think her parents would have liked to see us married, but I definitely did not want to be paired with them, nor would my father have ever allowed it. I overheard him talking with Mother about “trusting Jeremiah about as far as I could throw him.” I suppose Father does not hold much regard for him.

  They came here without their daughter this time and did not mention her so I suppose she has been married off to some other poor fool. I do not know what business they had with my father, but he was very upset when they left. I shall try to avoid contact with this family in the future and I suggest you do so as well if you ever chance to meet up with them since you now live so close to them. I pray for your continued health and happiness.

  Best regards, Phillip Goodwin

  I felt like I’d been taken back in time. In just one letter there was the happiness of a new baby being born and the joy of an engagement. The man who wrote this letter would have been my great-great grandfather and the Laura he mentioned would be my great-great grandmother. Being an only child and coming from parents who did not have much family, I found myself fascinated with the history of it all and I felt a closeness to the people I’d never met. I hoped that Peter wasn’t getting bored.

  “When was that letter written?” I asked.

  Peter unfolded it again and looked at the date. “It looks like it was May of 1895.”

  “Hmm . . . so this was written after Sophia had been dead for a while. I think she told me she quit haunting them after five or six years or something like that. I don’t think Nick started haunting them until sometime in the early 1900’s. Apparently this visit fell sometime between the two of them keeping tabs on Jeremiah and Elsa.”

  We finished the last of the letters without finding any more references to the “strange cousins” and decided to look through the photo album where I’d found the picture of Sophia with Jeremiah and Elsa. I found it fascinating to see what my dead relatives looked like. Some of the women were absolutely beautiful in their elegant dresses with high collars and long sleeves. I hoped that some of their genes had been passed on to me. Some of the pictures were a little eerie since no one ever smiled in pictures back in those days. I could only imagine what my ancestors would think if they saw the goofy poses and silly faces we made in modern photographs.

  “Have you ever heard of post-mortem photography?” Peter asked as he flipped through the album.

  “Umm . . . I’m not sure.”

  “Have you ever seen The Others? It’s a Nicole Kidman movie. Looking at all these old pictures makes me think of it.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh. The movie talks about it a little bit. It’s kind of a freaky movie. We should watch it together some time.”

  “Okay, but if it’s a scary movie can we wait until this whole thing with Nick and Sophia is done?”

  He smiled. “Of course.”

  “So what is post-whatever-you-called-it photography?”

  “Post-mortem. Years ago, when photographs first started to become available, people would sometimes take pictures of their deceased loved ones.”

  “Eww.”

  “It wasn’t creepy to them. Their culture was different back then. Regular people didn’t own cameras or have cell phones with video capabilities like they do now. It cost a lot of money to have your picture taken so people would sometimes wait until a family member died before they splurged on it. They wanted to preserve the memory of their loved ones.”

  “So . . . were they decaying when their pictures were taken?”

  “No. They took the pictures within the first couple days of the person dying so that they still looked somewhat normal. They posed them, too, you know.”

  “Posed them? What do you mean?”

  “Well, since photographs were such a rare occurrence, they usually wanted the whole family in the picture so they’d prop up the dead body, make sure their eyes were held open, and pose as if it were a normal family portrait. A lot of times they’d take pictures of dead kids with their favorite toys and sometimes if a mother died in childbirth, they’d prop her up, sit her baby on her lap, and then cover her face with a shroud of some sort. Those are the pictures that disturb me most.”

  “That is so creepy. How do you know all this anyway?”

  “You’re forgetting who my parents are. I’m sure I have a different feeling toward dead people than most kids my age. I grew up looking at skeletons.”

  Suddenly I had a whole different perspective while looki
ng through the photo album. I found myself analyzing every person in every picture to see if there were any signs of death. I questioned a couple of them, but Peter didn’t agree with me. Apparently he’d seen a lot of those pictures. I was fine looking at ghosts, but I didn’t want to stare at their real bodies.

  Toward the back of the album we started finding newspaper clippings and other small mementos. I found a few birth records and death notices of some of the ones whose letters we’d read earlier. Peter restlessly tapped his feet and squirmed atop his perch before finally standing up. He stared aimlessly out one of the windows into the backyard and I decided it was time to call it a day.

  But then I turned one more page.

  There was a clipping with the headline, “Couple Feared Lost At Sea.” I leaned in for a closer look. It was from the Newport News Daily Press and was dated September 28, 1912. I skimmed the first couple of lines.

  “Peter, listen to this.”

  He returned from his post at the window and sat next to me at the table. I began to read:

  “Former Newport News resident, Captain Jeremiah Goodwin, is believed to be lost at sea. The elderly Captain Goodwin’s ship, The Mist Seeker, was found smashed into the rocks near Sunset Cove after the large storm on the 16th day of September 1912. At first it was feared that no survivors would be found, but a young man by the name of Hans Bowman was discovered floating on a bit of debris the next day. Bowman claims he was the only person on the ship to survive. It is believed that the elderly Mrs. Goodwin was also aboard the ship at the time of its sinking.

  Captain Goodwin had recently sold his property on the south end of Newport News where he had been a part-time resident for the last thirty years. Captain Goodwin was known to be a shrewd businessman in the area. He and Mrs. Goodwin do not have any surviving descendants and no memorial services are currently being planned.”

  “Wow. They totally got what was coming to them,” Peter said when I’d finished reading the article.