Mystery of the Old Polaroid

Mystery of The Old Polaroid

Vickie Riggan

2,969 words

Dying is easy. One minute you’re breathing and the next you’re not. Poof! Life’s over. You are done. No more worries. But for those of us left behind the hard part is just beginning. Aside from the obvious funeral arrangements, obituary, and even what the deceased will wear in that final appearance, someone must handle so many details that living leaves behind. That someone this time is me.

As an only child and the only surviving member of Mother’s immediate family, except for my crazy Aunt Betty who swooped in from San Francisco for the funeral and just as quickly swept away, it’s up to me to cull through the debris of 69 years.

Had Mother known she was going to have a massive heart attack on her way to yoga class last week I’m sure she would have tidied things up better.  That was her way – always thinking of others and trying to make things easier for everyone else. I often marveled at the fact that she and Betty were sisters. “Are you sure one of you wasn’t adopted?” I would teasingly ask her when a postcard or some strange package would come in the mail from my world-traveling aunt. 

Mother would just smile and say, “She’s a little crazy but she’s, my sister.  She’s given me more than you can ever know.”

The best I can tell Aunt Betty has been to 58 countries and had 5 husbands and who knows how many liaisons as she preferred to call her lovers. So very different from the woman who raised me I thought, staring at the overburdened bookcase in the den and the stack of books on the table next to her favorite reading chair. 

My finger traced the rim of her tea mug left on the coaster by the chair as I slumped down into the worn cushions. This is where she sat having tea and a quick read on her last morning, I thought, and the tears began to well up. No time for that, I told myself. I need to make a start but where? It all felt so overwhelming. Absentmindedly I picked up the book beside her mug, a collection of Christmas-themed short stories. One story, “The Greatest Gift” was marked with an old black and white Polaroid picture of a young couple. It fell to the floor where it remained as I began reading the story about a young man who wishes he’d never been born. 

After a few minutes I put the book down and picked up the mug to take it into the kitchen. My eyes caught sight of the old photo so I picked it up for a closer look. I wasn’t sure who the young man was but after a moment I realized the face of the young woman was indeed my crazy Aunt Betty. A much younger version of the familiar full, rounded mouth and high cheek bones, but, yes, it was definitely her. 

“Why,” I wondered, “would my mother have an old photograph of her younger sister and some stranger in a book by her chair? And who was the young man, for that matter,” I thought. “Perhaps he was one of the lucky 5,” I mused smiling to myself. And I realized that it felt good to smile again, something I was afraid I had forgotten how to do. 

“Who are you,” I asked the young man in the photo as I sat Mother’s mug In the kitchen sink. “Uncle #1? #2? Aunt Betty looked pretty young in the photo, so if it was a husband it had to be one of the first. And clearly she was in love with him. Easy to see that in the loving way she looked up at him. And judging by the gentle way he held her hand and laid the other across the front of her belly, it was obvious that he loved her too.

“Wait a minute,” I said loudly to no one. Suddenly flipping the photo around and looking for clues; a date, a name, anything. On the back I found only three words “The Greatest Gift”. No names. No date. And no doubt as I looked more closely at the two young people in the old photo that they are in love and having a baby!

The gentle way the young man holds his hand on her belly. The loving look in my aunt’s eyes as she looks into his. But what happened to that baby? I don’t have any cousins, at least I don’t think I do. I mean, wouldn’t I know if I did? Did she lose it? Why didn’t my mother ever tell me about this?

I had so many questions and only one place to get answers. I pulled the phone from my pocket and hit speed dial for Betty Olson. Three rings and straight to voicemail. “Call me,” I said trying to keep my voice steady. “I’ve found something in Mother’s things that you may want.”

I rinsed out the tea mug and set it to drain then went back to the chair in the den picking up the book of short stories. This time I read the whole story but saw no connection to the photo, my mother’s life, or her sister’s. At least what I knew of Betty’s life. 

Staring at the photo then back to the words on the page things began to blur. Sleep had been a precious commodity over the past week and my fatigue was catching up. I put my feet up on the ottoman and leaned back into the soft chair drifting off to sleep. 

I woke up still tired. The room was lit only by the glow of the streetlight outside the big picture window behind me. My phone had slipped from my hand and fallen under the chair. One missed call. “Damn it!” I swore under my breath as I hit voicemail. 

“Sorry I missed your call, Sweetie, but really, I doubt there’s anything in my sister’s house that I could want or need. We were two sides of the same coin coming from the same background but approaching life in very different ways. Stay sweet, dear girl,” and with the click of what I knew to be her impossibly long, unreal acrylic nail she clicked the end button. 

Frustrated I got up and stretched my legs walking around the room surveying old photographs of me from infancy to just a few weeks ago when I was appointed head archivist at the state library. After a few more minutes of pacing I realized the thing I needed now was sleep. My brain was too foggy to focus on what needed to be done. I’m not sure why but I want, no I need, to find out what happened to that child. I fell asleep trying to imagine crazy Aunt Betty waddling around in large maternity tops. Definitely not her style.

The next morning I dug through Mother’s desk and found an old magnifying glass. Taking the photo over to the desk by the window where bright morning beams of sunlight poured through, I studied every inch of the grainy picture. It had come to me when I first woke up. “I’m an archivist. A trained investigator. I can figure this out.” The couple stood in front of what looked to be a muscle car popular in the late 60s. The car was parked in a big lot with what appeared to be a pier in the background. A portion of the sign on the building at the end of the pier was visible. I scribbled notes. Then, jackpot, I noticed a license plate on the car! California plates with all but the last digit visible. 

I celebrated with a fresh cup of ginger tea. Then I tried Betty again the call still going straight to voicemail. 

                                                          ***************

Life in America in 1969 was both terrifying and exciting. Bobby and Martin’s assassinations the year before were like pouring gas on an already raging fire. Quite literally there were fires where women burned their bras and young men burned draft cards. Even returning vets who had seen the horrors in Vietnam were protesting in the streets. 

For Betty Olson 1969 was bittersweet. She laid on a small cot in one of the birthing suites at the commune that had taken her in when her pregnancy no longer allowed her to sleep in the back seat of the Roadrunner. The only connection left between her and John she thought. But across the room a cry from the bassinet reminded her she was wrong. John was gone, that was certain. Senselessly killed in a faraway jungle only weeks before his child was born. “What a mess I’ve made of things,” she said aloud to no one.

“What don’t you make a mess of, little sister?” and there at the door stood her big sister Ann. Steady, dependable, always taking care of things Ann.

“How did you…..? What are you…?” she fumbled her words trying to make sense of things. Was she having an hallucination? No, the midwives at the commune were adamant about no drugs throughout the delivery.

“Sunflower called me. Or at least that’s what she said her name was. It seems you were having some problems during labor and she took it on herself to go through your bags and found my number. Thank God, she did,” Ann answered as she walked over to quiet the squalling child. 

“What am I going to do with a baby, Sis? I’m practically still a baby myself,” she spouted.

“Well, I suppose you know who the father is. I suggest you ask him for help. May I suggest a belated shotgun affair at the Justice of the Peace office?,” she added.

Betty burst into tears at the mention of her baby’s father. “He’s dead, Sis. Killed in that Godforsaken war that Nixon insists on continuing.”

“And he didn’t marry you before he left?” she asked.

“He couldn’t. He was already married,” she responded fully ready for her sister’s look of disapproval. Instead she noticed Ann was totally enthralled by the tiny bundle she was now holding and rocking in her arms.

“Why am I not surprised? So, did this philandering Romeo know that you were carrying his child the last time you saw him? Did he make any provisions for you and his unborn child?”

“Well, I have his Roadrunner. He signed it over to me before he shipped out,” Betty replied as she watched the tender way her big sister held the new baby to her chest as if she had been the one who had just given birth. Betty hadn’t meant for Ann or anyone else in the family to know about the baby until John returned. He had planned to divorce his wife back in Texas and marry her making a home for them and of course, making more babies. Now those dreams were gone. She felt a knot growing in her throat and tears burning in her eyes. A surge of emotions – anger, fear, pain – welled up inside her and without knowing she was doing it she began to moan loudly. The tears came in violent torrents and her breathing became ragged. 

Ann ran to the door to call for help still clutching the tiny form to her chest. The midwife rushed in along with Sunflower, the young girl who had called Ann. She took the baby from Ann offering assurances that she would be fine with the wet nurse who lived in the commune. She stepped back into the room lingering near the door watching as the midwife tended to her sister. Betty was calming down now sipping on what the old mid wife called birthing tea adding a wink as she said it. It seemed there was nothing else she could do with both Betty and baby tended to, so she left to go back to her room in a better neighborhood of San Francisco. 

The next morning Ann found Betty sitting up on the side of the cot stuffing clothes into a large tote bag. The baby lay sleeping in the crude bassinet in the corner of the room. “Where are you and the baby going now? Surely you’re not thinking you can live in a car with a newborn,” she said.

“No, we can’t. But I can,” she answered. Her voice was steady now, very matter of fact.

“What are you saying? Did you do something crazy with that poor little thing?” she asked running over to see that in fact the little girl was sleeping quietly in her bed. She looked down at a piece of paper lying in the bassinet with the small child. A California birth certificate which she picked up to read eyes widening in surprise as she did.

“That’s right. She’s yours now. Take good care of your new daughter. Not that I have to tell you to do the right thing. You always do.” Ann just stared mouth agape, with no words to say.

“I thought it over last night after the tea calmed me down and realized that I can barely take care of myself, but you dear sister, you could take care of an entire village and still hold down a full-time job. And I know if Charlie Burton had made it back from Nam the two of you would have been married and started popping out little ones already. You’ve been so sad since he died, but yesterday I saw a little bit of my old sister come back to life when you picked up your daughter and comforted her,” she said.

“But this is fraud. You can’t just put any name on a legal document and get away with it,” Ann added.

“Well, actually, that document is not the fraud. John Woods, the father listed on the certificate, is the real name of her father. But when I came here to get help I used your name. I was sorta, well, hiding from John’s wife. Heard she was in town looking for his car and me. Hid the car with a guy I know out past San Rafael then decided she was looking for Betty so I became Ann. Sunflower, bless her soul, is a true peace-loving hippie who believes anything she’s told. And very efficient. Got the paperwork done quick when I told her I was on the run,” Betty was smiling a little as told me this incredible story.

The small life in her arms stirred. Ann looked down into bright blue eyes and little pink lips blowing baby bubbles. Her heart melted. Betty was good at pushing people’s buttons and mentioning Charlie and the dream she had lost when he was listed MIA melted her resolve. “But how will I explain a baby when I go back to DC. I have a life with a job and friends and a very small apartment,” she stammered.

But Betty was smart about people, especially her big sister. Two sides of the same coin she thought. She was the carefree, live life to the fullest kind of girl that her sister would never understand. And there was no room for a baby in that existence. That much she knew. Ann, the other side of the coin, was steady and nurturing, solid and obviously already falling love with this new life.

“You’ll figure it all out. I have faith in you, Sis,” she spoke breezily closing the clasp on her tote and taking one quick look down at the little bundle of pink the surprised new mother held. “She has John’s nose,” she said without thinking then quickly walked to the door. “We’ve had a few secrets between us, Sis, but this must be the one we truly never tell anyone. Till death,” she said and spit in her palm offering it over to Ann like a couple of pubescent girls in a tree house. Ann carefully pulled her right hand from under the cradled infant, spit in the palm and shook her little sister’s hand. “Til death.”

Betty smiled and walked out the door turning left in the hallway toward the back exit. Ann picked up her sensible handbag where she quickly tucked the birth certificate. Then carefully wrapping the little pink blanket around her newfound blessing she said softly, “Well, Elizabeth, that’s quite a mouthful of name for such a little bundle. I think I will call you Libby,” and with that pronouncement Ann Olson, new mother, walked out the door and turned right.

                                                          ****************

Back in the 21^st century Libby Olson’s phone rang. She hunted around the boxes, piles of books, stacks of tape and other packing supplies before realizing the ringing came from her pocket. “When this is finished I’m going to sleep for a week,” she thought.

Looking down at caller ID she had to rub her eyes to believe what she was seeing. After a week of missed calls and subtle voicemails Libby had finally given up on the mystery of the old Poloroid. Obviously it was a secret her mother had taken to her death and her sister wasn’t willing to talk about.

“Libby,dear,” Aunt Betty spoke loudly into the phone. I’ve been thinking about your voicemails and that photo you found. My God, I didn’t even know your mother still had that,” she paused for a sip from a glass - something stronger than iced tea, Libby thought.

“As soon as you can I’d like you to come out to San Francisco and bring that photo. I have a story to tell you. By the way, how do you feel about muscle cars? I have a 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner with your name on it.”