The Wedding Photo

Sarah couldn’t believe that her parents were gone. It seemed like it was all a nightmare. First the fire and then her parents passing away just days later. It didn’t seem real.

               She walked into what was left her house and looked around to see if there was anything salvageable. She started to tear up. Everything that she had worked so hard for was gone in a matter of hours. As she walked carefully around, her foot collided with a stack of picture frames. She knelt down and picked them up one at a time, examining them one by one. None of them were really recognizable.

               Except one.

               There was one on the very bottom of the stack that looked like it was completely untouched by the fire. The frame wasn’t damaged nor was the picture inside. The glass had a small crack in it, but that was the extent of the damage to it in anyway. She stared at the picture for a few minutes with a thoughtful smile on her face. It was a picture of her mother and her father one their wedding day back in ’46. She carefully undid the back and pulled it off. She didn’t want to risk the broken glass around her kids, so she carefully removed the picture from the frame. As she did so, she noticed that there was writing on the back. She paused to read it.

               My dearest, Charlene, and Jonathon on the day they were wed. June 17^th, 1924.

“June seventeenth nineteen thirty seven?” Sarah read out loud. “That can’t be right. Ma and Pa were married on December eighth nineteen forty six. And that’s not there names. That is strange.”

               Her mother was adamant that this was their wedding photo. She had talked about it for years. How it was the happiest day of her life. That she had married her best friend, James, on that day. Her mother’s name was Vivian.

               So who were Charlene and Jonathon? Sarah wondered as she stood up and continued to search the house for anything that could be saved. But that thought kept running through her mind. She placed the picture in the backpack that she had brought with her. As she continued to search the house, she made a mental note to go and talk to her Aunt Louise when she was done. Maybe she would know who Charlene and Jonathon were.

               As Sarah went up the stairs to the second story, being mindful of any stairs that felt weak or loose, she noticed something strange. All the other windows on both the first and second floors had either been blown out by the fire or the firemen had shattered with the water hose. But yet the one at the top of the stairs was still intact. It just struck Sarah as odd. But not as odd as what she saw when she turned the corner to walk down the hallway at the top of the stairs.

               The hallway was spotlessly clean. There were no signs that a fire had taken place at all. Now Sarah remembered watching the firemen come up the stairs with the fire hose and fighting flames that could clearly be seen at the top of the stairs. But there were no signs that any of that had taken place now. She backed up to look back around the corner and look down the stairs to the first story. Blackened wood and furniture met her gaze, but when she looked back down the hallway on the second story it was untouched.

               “This is getting really strange,” Sarah said out loud.

               “What is dear?” came a sweet lady’s voice from down the hall. This voice caught Sarah completely off guard, because she was supposed to be the only one in the house.

               “Hello?” Sarah called out, as a door down at the end of the hallway opened and a young lady wearing a dress that was straight out of the 1900’s.

               “Can I help you with something, dear?” the lady asked.

               “Who are you?” Sarah asked, still very confused as to what was going.

               “Well, my name is Charlene, honey. What is yours might I ask?” Charlene said.

               “Sarah. How did you get up here? How did you get it so clean up here so fast? I mean the fire was just last week, but you can’t tell it ever happened up here,” Sarah said, looking around the hallway.

               “Fire? What fire, dear? There hasn’t been any fire here since 1899. When the barn burnt down. Are you okay?” Charlene asked.

               “The house caught fire last week after a lightening storm. Lightening struck the old antenna on top of the house. I thought the house was going to collapse, the fire was so bad,” Sarah said, backing up to the corner again. She had to glance back down the staircase again to make sure that she wasn’t going crazy. But what she saw made her think that maybe she was going crazy. Because when she looked down the stairs, there were no burn marks on the white walls on either side of the stairs. The part of the living room that she could see wasn’t burned anymore.

               But then she noticed something really strange, the furniture that she could see wasn’t hers. The floor was a hardwood finish. Sarah had had carpet installed a little over a year ago when she had the floor replaced because the hardwood floor was starting to give.

               “Ms. Sarah, are you okay, dear?” Charlene asked again, snapping Sarah’s attention back to her.

               “What year is it? I forget?” Sarah asked trying to not still sound confused.

               “Why it is nineteen twenty five, honey. February third nineteen twenty five to be exact,” Charlene said.

               “Nineteen twenty five? Are you sure?” Sarah asked, stunned.

               “Why yes, ma’am. Are you sure that you are okay? Do you I need to call the doc? You are starting to look a little pale, dear. Perhaps you should come lie down,” Charlene said, motioning for her to go into the first room on the left of the hallway. Sarah entered the room to find an old, inn style bed and a tall, brown six drawer tall dresser. Those were the only furnishings in the room. She sat on the edge of the bed as Charlene went to the window and opened it. Then she leaned out and called, “Jon! Can you come here please? Upstairs.”

               “Sure, I will be right there. Just let me tie Dancer up in her stall,” came a far off reply. Charlene closed the window. “Why don’t you lie back, honey. I will go get you a bite to eat and a glass of water. Try to relax and maybe when you have calmed down we can figure out what is ailing you, okay?”

               Sarah nodded and laid back on the pillows. She closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. She didn’t know how long she was laying there, but it seemed like within minutes she was being shaken awake.

               “Mom? Mom! Are you okay?” her daughter’s voice broke through her grogginess. Sarah sat up straight, but she wasn’t in the bed that she had dozed off in. She was once again in the burned down house that she had first started in. She was laying on the floor next to the stack of pictures. And in her hand was the picture that she had pulled from the picture frame.

               “Yeah, I am fine. I must have dozed off,” Sarah said sitting up. She looked at the picture again, but it had changed. It wasn’t the same couple standing side by side in the picture. She flipped it over and read what was written on the back again.

               My dearest, Vivan, and James on the day they were wed, Dec. 8^th, 1946.

               “Mom, are you okay?” Her daughter asked again.

               “Yeah, I am now,” Sarah said. She decided to keep what happened to herself. She didn’t think anyone else would believe her. She wondered if it had really happened or if it was all dream herself.