Dovetail: A Novel(29)

“Of course.”

Joe pushed back his chair. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be right back.” He went to the hallway, where he’d lined the framed photos on the floor along the wall, all the easier to organize and inventory. Most of them he planned to take out of the frame and keep, either for himself or Linda, but they wouldn’t be worth much if he didn’t know who was in the pictures. His father might know, but he couldn’t count on his cooperation. And knowing that his grandmother had terminal cancer made the timing critical. Joe picked up three of the photos and returned to his seat in the kitchen.

“These are the three I’m most interested in,” he said, setting the first one in front of her. It was the family portrait he’d spotted when he’d first arrived. “I’m assuming that’s you and my dad and his father, your husband?”

“That’s right. The Arneson family, in better days.” She pointed to each one. “Me, William, Francis.”

“What year was that?”

Her lips pressed together. “Your father would have been three and a half. You do the math. My noggin’s not as sharp as it used to be.”

The next photo was of a bride and groom. He sensed it was way before his father’s time, and he was right. The couple turned out to be his great-grandparents. “Mary and George Bennett. Wasn’t my mama pretty?” Pearl said, turning the image back to him.

“Very pretty.”

“She died before she could get old, so in my memory, she’s always young, although I didn’t think so at the time. Bless her heart, she missed out on so much.”

Joe wrote down the names. The year, luckily, was written on the back. When he was done, he pulled out the last one, a framed sepia-toned photograph of seven girls standing in a row like stairsteps, going from the tallest on down to a tiny little girl with curly light-colored hair. “This is you and your sisters, right?” He slid it across the table. “I recognized you, but if you’d let me know who is who, I can . . .”

Pearl gasped and put her hand to her mouth. She didn’t say anything for a long time, and when she did, her voice was accusatory. “Where did you get this?”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, I . . . Where did you find this?”

“It was in a frame behind another photo.” His grandmother nodded, her face softening, her eyes never leaving the picture. In the short time he’d known her, Pearl had displayed an array of emotions ranging from jubilation to irritation, but this expression was new to him. He couldn’t quite identify it. Longing? Regret? Whatever it was, she appeared close to tears.

“Why? Is there something wrong?” he finally asked.

“No, I just didn’t know a copy of this photo still existed. I hadn’t seen it in, well, forever.” She smiled ruefully. “When my father died, I burned a lot of photographs. Trying to erase some bad memories. Turns out you can’t erase them, in case you were wondering. The past follows you around whether you want it to or not.”

Joe pushed his chair closer and leaned in to look. “I’m guessing that’s you with your sisters. Am I right?” He pointed to the one he thought was Pearl, second from the left, her chin tipped upward, a mysterious smile on her face.

She said, “This is the only photograph of all seven of us together.”

He asked for their names, and she started with the littlest girl, Daisy, and worked her way across the photo ending with, “And Emma and Helen, and me, of course.” There was a catch in her voice when she pointed to the last young woman. “And my older sister, Alice.” Her lips pressed together as she looked beyond him at some point down the hall. Looking into the past, he thought. “Ally-bird, we called her, because she was always singing.”

“I don’t think you mentioned her name before.”

She took a sharp intake of breath, and he saw it again. The expression he couldn’t place, but now he recognized it as sorrow. “I’m sure I didn’t mention her name. It’s too difficult for me. I haven’t been able to talk about her for a long time. She died young, too young. It was the biggest tragedy of my life.”





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN





1983


With a job in sales, Ricky was able to set his own schedule, and he made sure it matched Kathleen’s. He became bolder, showing up where he knew she would be. He didn’t approach her, though, something that took all his willpower. She had to know that he now lived in the area. Whenever they were in the same place, he’d glance in her direction. Once he was sure he’d caught her eye, he’d pretend to be preoccupied. His strategy was to wait for her to approach him. This, he thought, was particularly generous on his part. Allowing her come to him in her own time would give her a sense of control. The ball was in her court. His devotion could not go unnoticed.

To grease the wheels, he began to send her small gifts—jewelry, books of poetry, candles—the kinds of things she used to go nuts over back when they were dating. He left them in her parents’ mailbox or behind the screen door at their house. The notes he included were romantic and said things like: We are meant to be together. You’ll never find someone who loves you like I do. I will spend the rest of my life convincing you that we need to be together. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you by my side.