Dreaming of You

“This is ghoulish,” my sister said, from somewhere in the dimness of the attic.

I had been flipping through an old photo album, my mind a million miles away. “What is?” I asked.

“Grandma isn’t even dead yet and we’re already going through her things, dividing it up and acting like it’s ours already.”

“Let’s be realistic,” I offered. “We know she may only have a couple weeks, if that. Would you prefer we did this after the funeral, when everyone is depressed?”

“It just seems wrong to-“ Jules stopped suddenly, and I looked up. She was holding a painting, not a particularly good one, but with her attention focused on the back.

“There’s an envelope taped to the back of this one. Looks like it’s been there forever.” Gingerly, she detached the envelope and flipped it over. A single photo fell out. Nothing else.

Together we examined the picture. It was a beautiful young blonde woman in profile, gazing out a window with a wistful look on her face. On the back was written, in a flowing, rounded hand: ‘Dreaming of you.’ Neither of us recognized the woman, although we agreed she looked strangely familiar, and there was no date or anything. It was black and white, but not sepia-toned, meaning it was probably from some time in the forties or fifties. Our grandparents were born in 1918 and 1919, so they may have known this woman. I tucked the photo into my back pocket and we went down to see what Grandma could tell us.

We were disappointed.

“No idea,” our grandmother said, barely even glancing at the woman, and that seemed to be that.

On our way back to our parents’ house, we resolved to show the picture to our mother, to see if she recognized the woman. The whole thing was starting to feel like a Sherlock Holmes story. So much mystery!

Mom stared at the picture for a long time. She seemed at war with herself, frowning and chewing her lower lip. She started to talk a few times, but then shut her mouth again.

“Who is she? You look like you want to punch her and hug her at the same time.” My sister put her hand on our mother’s shoulder, and Mom finally spoke.

“My father was a good man. I want you to know that first. He was a good father to me and my sisters, a gentle soul.”

She took a deep breath. “Now, I got the story from my dad right before he passed. I’m not entirely clear on the details, but this was my father’s girlfriend back when he met your grandmother. Her name was Pearl. He told Mom that they had broken up, but he kept seeing her in secret even after he and Mom were married. They had a big fight about it, I know that, and almost got divorced. This was when Lucy and I were still little, and the twins hadn’t even been born yet. Your grandmother hates her, always has. No wonder she didn’t want to look at that picture. Dad said he burned all of Pearl’s pictures and letters, but I guess he kept one.”

Later, after dinner was had, Jules and I were in the room we had shared as kids, in our twin beds that we had only lately vacated. Both of us lay on our backs, staring at the ceiling. We both had the same thought (something that happened often, as close as we were). Jules was the one who gave it voice.

“There’s got to be something more to this. Why would he keep even one picture if he knew his wife would leave him for it? We need to ask Mom more questions.”

Breakfast was a hurried affair, as we were going back to Grandma’s house to continue going through things. Jules and I were assigned the attic again, since we had already made a good start on it. Without talking about it, both of us were going through the various boxes and trunks a little more slowly and carefully, looking for more clues to this puzzle. We looked at the backs of all the rest of the paintings without finding anything, but in the bottom of a cardboard box filled with bank ledgers that were fifty years old, we found a letter, this one addressed to our grandfather in that same flowing script. The envelope was slit open, and we extracted the single sheet of paper that still smelled faintly of perfume. The letter was dated January 10, 1942:

“Dear Oscar,

You can stop sending me money. I have a job now building planes for the war and I can pay my own bills. You know it hurt to get those checks every month, knowing I can never see you again. I also don’t expect any more letters from you. I would much rather not, to be honest. You know why.

My love to your family,

Pearl”

Jules and I looked at each other, then at the envelope again. The return address was in Kansas City, quite a drive from St. Louis. We knew that our grandparents bought this house when they had the twins, and that they had lived in Columbus, Missouri after they got married, which sat almost exactly between Kansas City and St. Louis.

As soon as we got the chance, Jules and I cornered our mother in the kitchen to ask more questions about Pearl. Why did Grandaddy keep the picture and letter? What else does she know about what happened?

“There was a rumor, I don’t know if it’s true, but they say that Pearl moved to Kansas City because she was pregnant. She would have been about nineteen or so, and almost as old as your grandmother now. As far as I know, she’s dead. Or in a nursing home somewhere. I promise that’s all I’ve got, okay? Now do me a favor, both of you. Don’t go pursuing this any more until I’m holding your grandmother’s ashes in my hands. You digging up all this old drama is just going to upset her.”

We promised, but we made secret plans to track down Pearl, if she was still alive, and find out who she was, that she should be so important to our grandfather. We could take turns driving to Kansas City. We made our plans, and then resolved to honor our mother’s request and wait until Grandma had passed.

Since we were on summer vacation from college, which we spent at our folks’ house most of the time, our family basically tasked us with everything nobody else wanted to deal with, much like the attic. We ran errands and helped clean rooms that had been emptied, their contents distributed amongst the descendants or headed to the rubbish bins. Nobody said it, but we were all waiting for Grandma’s last breath. About a week after Jules and I discovered the photo in the attic, she went into her final coma. Three days later, she was gone.

The memorial service was brief but heartfelt, everyone expressing how courageous and determined Mildred had been. Most of those who got up to speak choked up at some point, which I feel is the mark of a good funeral. I hope people cry when I die.

When our mother placed the urn, a somber thing shaped like an old ginger jar but colored an unremarkable dark gray, up on the mantel, she turned to my sister and I and said:

“Okay, a deal’s a deal. Go on your quest. I’ll tell you if I want to know what you find.”

We made our way to Kansas City and got a hotel room. Our first stop was the return address on the letter. As we expected, Pearl didn’t live there anymore. The people who bought the house told us that the seller had been middle-aged, but she kind of looked like the woman in the photo. Maybe a daughter?

That being a dead end, we went up to the factory where Pearl must have worked. When we explained our mission to the foreman, he was more help than we could have hoped for. He showed us a wall of photos of women working on various airplane parts, most of them black and white. We scanned through them, looking for Pearl, and found her. Each of the women had written their full name on their picture. Pearl’s last name had been Worthington. We thanked the foreman profusely and went back to the hotel.

The following day, Jules got on her laptop and found all the nursing homes in the area. She got more results than we were hoping for, but we each took half of the phone numbers we found and spent most of the morning making calls. When that didn’t pan out, we started on hospice homes. We knew that Pearl could have gotten married in the years since she knew our grandfather, and that did not help.

Finally, after about twenty phone calls, we got a hit. Pearl’s new last name was Jefferson. She was actually in hospice care, in a place called Paradise View. To get in to see her, we had to be family, so we told the nurse we were Pearl’s grandchildren. Visiting hours were on alternate days, so we couldn’t get in until tomorrow, but we would be able to at least see her. It turned out she was now unresponsive and they were not sure how long she had.

We went out to eat and debated calling our mother. We decided not to, at least until we knew something concrete. We deliberately avoided the one subject on our minds while we ate and made plans.

Early the next day, we drove straight out to Paradise View, only stopping for coffee. The lobby was spacious and tastefully decorated, but you could smell disinfectant and the unmistakeable musk of despair. We told the receptionist who were were there to see, and she had to make a phone call to the attending physician. She listened for a while, and then hung up.

“I am so sorry! Pearl actually passed just twenty minutes ago. But if you still want to at least see her, Doctor Narib said he can give you a few minutes.”

We followed her instructions down a sterile hallway, turned left, and found the room. There was a short, dark man in a lab coat with a clipboard in his hands standing next to the bed, but neither Jules nor I even gave him a glance after we saw Pearl’s face.

The familiar slope of the nose, the cupid’s bow mouth, the jawline, even the graceful neck, the resemblance between me and my sister and the woman in the bed was even more clear in person.

One thing was certain: We had found our real grandmother. Just half an hour too late.