I release Arlo’s hand and weave around him, my gaze on her, trying to recognize her—understand her. She’s expressionless, though, void of all emotion. I stop at the counter and glance at the photo, uncertain of what to expect. My breath catches in my throat, and my heart beats painfully in my chest. “How do you have this? Did you take it?”
In response, she reaches for something else below the counter, producing a large box that she places in front of me. The contests are a mess of pictures that rock and shift with the movement, each catching my attention. I trace over the snapshots—history that has me shaking my head as sense falls, leaving me free-falling in this old shop with this woman I met through a chance.
Arlo steps forward, reaching for a picture that he lifts with the care that doesn’t seem possible for someone as big and strong as he is. He swings his attention from the picture to me again, undoubtedly seeing the resemblance in the hundreds of photos he helped me sift through, searching for evidence that Miriam has in spades.
“Where did you get these?” he asks her.
She stares at me, studying me without abandon as I do her. I realize the right side of her face has a slight droop. She swallows, and I wonder what she sees in me—what she notices that makes her answer my question. “From your mother.”
I turn on my heel, reaching the door to the congested store in seven steps. Behind me is an exchange of words that I can’t hear over my own thoughts and memories that are each screaming louder than the previous ones. The cold air greets me as I try to pull in a breath, my throat closed, and my heart aching.
“Come on,” Arlo appears next to me, his hand around my shoulders, pulling me close to his side. The contact once again has a conflicting reaction as his warmth is welcomed, and his closeness feels suffocating.
We walk.
And walk.
And walk.
My thoughts compound and disperse as I try to make sense and reason out of this strange woman having so many pictures of me—me with Ellen.
We walk until tears roll down my cheeks, and my heart shudders with betrayal and confusion and hurt. Until those same tears cease and make my cheeks feel dry and my head pounds with a new headache. And then we walk some more, while Arlo remains next to me, his hand wrapped around my shoulder.
When we reach a corner where the sidewalk ends, I release a shallow breath. “I don’t know what’s going on,” I tell him. “I don’t know how to find answers when my dad pretends this isn’t real.” Fresh tears pool in my eyes, skipping down my cheeks as they race to the sidewalk. “I don’t understand who she is or how she knows me or where she even got those from.
“Why wouldn’t my mom have told me? And why did Ellen come around when I was a kid and then stop?” The few memories I have of her flash through my thoughts, seconds torn from entire days, and years that create a short-film with our laughter as the soundtrack and confusion as the plot.
“Could she be your aunt? Maybe a friend of your mom’s?” he asks. “Could Miriam be lying?”
I shake my head. “I have no idea. I mean, I don’t see how she could be lying. But, I also don’t understand how she recognized me or why she won’t just tell me the truth. I’m so tired of her riddles and stupid act. I mean, what if I have a sister or another brother? Is that possible? I just…” I drop my head back with a growl, my feelings unable to be translated into words.
Arlo pulls something out of his pocket and hands it to me. It’s the picture from the counter, the one of me sitting on Ellen’s lap with a colander of rinsed strawberries. I remember having picked them, my mom warning me to be careful of the vines because they’d give me a rash. I remember the sweetness of the berries, the way Ellen was willing to play tag and dolls, and every other made-up game I requested that Mom rarely had the time or energy to play.
He tenderly takes the picture and flips it around, where I read: Ellen Scarborough and Olivia Jane, 4 years old, Loves strawberries, lemonade, and ballet.