Maude Brown's Baby (11 page)

“It’s a shame there’s not a clock showing in the picture of you. It would be interesting to know th
e time.” She meant it as a joke, but instead of laughing, Donald laid all three prints side-by-side on the kitchen table.

“This is the order in which they were taken. First the one of me, then of the man and the girl, and fi
nally the one of the woman.”

“How do you know?” Clara felt alone in the room.

“The angle of the shadows,” Donald said. “See, they get lower later in the day. The photographer used a single light source, probably two or three large windows along the southwest wall of the house. They must have been covered by thin curtains or a sheet, because the light is diffuse. Did you notice the shadows? If there was direct sunlight on the subject, the shadows would be more harsh.”

Clara barely followed his reasoning. More than confused, she was growing angry, but didn’t know why.

“I’ve only looked at photographs as pictures. You read them like books.”

Donald agreed. “It’s what photographers do.” He continued as if teaching a class.
“Most people just point their Kodaks and push the button, then wonder why the results are disappointing. To make good pictures, you have to pay attention to the light.”

“I thought it was just the quality of the camera.” Clara’s expression was calm, her voice cool, but under the table, her fists were tight.

“Having a good camera helps,” Donald said, “but the eye of the photographer is the main thing.”

Clara focused on the
prints a moment longer. “You said the windows faced southwest. How do you know
that
?” Her toes began tapping the floor under her chair.

“Again, it’s the angle of the light and the time of year. Also, I know these pictures were probably made here in Galveston, where all of the streets conform to the island’s northeast to southwest shape rather than a true north-south grid.” He pointed to one of the prints. “For this time of day in September, the light had to be coming from the southwest.”

Clara turned and gripped Donald’s arm. “Donald, Mr. Booth told us where the house was after the storm. It couldn’t have floated more than a block without coming apart. Since you know the angle it faced, maybe you can determine its original location!”

“Yes!” Donald said, finally showing some excitement. “We’d need a good map and property records.” His shoulders sagged. “But
…”

“But what?”

“All those files were lost in the storm.”

That stopped them both short. Clara eased her grip on Donald’s arm, and he leaned back in his chair.

They sat quietly, and in the silence Clara’s anger returned. It rolled through her mind, gathered steam and exploded into words too suddenly to stop.

“Donald, why are you talking so much about photography?” She waved her hand toward the little row of pictures. “These people are the family you never knew! This woman is probably you
r mother, but all you can talk about is light and grains and the time of day!”

Startled, Donald turned to Clara, whose cheeks were turning red. He was good at discerning color and tone, even without his glasses. Clara reached past him for one of the prints. She stood
suddenly, scraping her chair across the floor. She waved the print beside her face like a fan.

“For all you know, this little girl is your sister! The man holding her is likely your father! I should think you’d be more excited by that than you are about details of the print!”

Donald looked up blankly at Clara’s face, too stunned to speak. She stared back, shocked by her own rage at this near stranger, but still searching for a hint of emotion in his eyes.

There was none.

Seconds passed. Clara’s anger waned, replaced by understanding.
They were close, barely five feet apart, but Donald was only looking toward her, not at her.

“
Donald, can you see me at all?”

“Well, no, not very well. I’m sorry. Just a second.” He patt
ed the table for his glasses, found them, then slipped the loops behind his ears and forced a smile. “There! Good as new!”

He looked into Clara’s eyes. They were blue and moist.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes. I’m sorry for my outburst, but you surprised me. Don’t you
care who these people are? Why aren’t you more excited? We found your family!”

“W
e can’t assume these people are my relatives.”

She pointed to the second print. “What about this one? Don’t you think that’s your mother?”

Donald picked up the print and held it so they both could see. An unsmiling young woman stared back. She wore a simple dark dress with extra fabric around the shoulders and upper arms, as was the fashion in the late 1800s. She wore her hair in a tight bun. The woman appeared to be in her mid-twenties. No necklace or earrings, but there was a handsome ivory cameo pinned just below her lace collar.

“I can’t just guess.” Donald said, still staring at the face on the card.

“Why not? This seems clear to me. I think it is safe to assume …”

“NO!” Donald said, thumping his fist on the table. Clara flinched.

He dropped the card next to the others. When he turned to face Clara again, she sat, hands in her lap and eyes wide, waiting for him to go on.

“Clara, I grew up in a children’s home, wondering who my parents might have been. Besides the employees, a group of ladies volunteered their time and raised money to support the home. The woman I mentioned before, Nina Carhart, was one of them, and she still helps whenever she can.”

“Very nice,” Clara said, “but what does …” Donald lifted his hand to stop her.

“From as early as I can remember, I wondered if one of those ladies was my real mother, quietly keeping an eye on me. I made up stories in my mind. I told myself that she had a secret, some special reason why she couldn’t let anyone know I was her son.”

“Oh, Donald, I’m sorry.” Her hand reached halfway to his, then returned to her lap.

“I know better now, but when I was a boy, still living at the orphanage, the thought consumed me. Whoever smiled at me or was kind in some way, I imagined she was my mother, and for some reason she couldn’t tell. In my mind, it became an unspoken secret between us.”

Donald shifted in his chair and gazed at his knees. Clara noticed the thumb and first finger of his right hand were just touching, forming a little circle just as they did in the photo of him as a child. Seconds passed before he continued.

“For more than a year, I was convinced it was
Mrs. Carhart. I knew it was her and treasured the secret. She was so kind to me, more than any of the others.”

“
Was she the one who noticed you needed glasses?”

“Yes. She drove me herself to the optometrist in h
er Cadillac. I remember because it was the first time I’d ever ridden in a motor car, and the first time I’d seen a woman drive. I was so proud that she was my ma, even if she couldn’t tell me.”

“Were you disappointed to learn she wasn’t?”

“Devastated. All of us at the home were orphans, but at least the others knew who their parents had been. I dreamed of finding mine, or at least learning what happened to them. Hope was all I had.”

Clara searched Donald’s face as he went on.

“A few months after Mrs. Carhart bought my first pair of glasses, I learned more about her life. One day I realized she couldn’t have been my mother. After that, I never made the same mistake.”

Cla
ra moved again to touch his arm, then stopped. “But you think of her as your friend?”

“Mrs. Carhart took an interest in me. She’s a widow and doesn’t have any children of her own. Maybe she’s just lonesome, but I like to think it’s more than that.”

Without asking if he wanted some, Clara got up to make tea. It gave her time to consider what Donald had said. After she put the kettle on the stove, she turned and leaned back against the kitchen counter, hands lightly gripping the edge.

“Donald, you seem well-
educated. I know people with college degrees who can’t express themselves as well. Is Mrs. Carhart responsible for that?”

“Oh, thank you, yes,” Donald said, finally looking up. “She’s been like a guide, a tutor or a coach. All three, actually. When I was eleven, she got permission from the orphanage to have me visit her home for dinner once a week, always on a Thursday. Her driver would pick me up. I guess you’d
say that she taught me manners: how to eat, how to dress, how to behave in polite company, that sort of thing.”

“Just the two of you for dinner?”

“No, there were always others, usually creative people such as artists, authors and musicians. She has many interesting friends and she travels a lot. Her mother lives with her, so she’s there, too, whenever I visit. When I first started going to her dinners, the best thing was that no one treated me like a child.”

Clara poured two cups of tea, set them on the table and returned with two slices of pecan pie. Donald, suddenly hungry, was learning that Clara was a wonderful cook. He picked up a fork, then did something
Mrs. Carhart had taught him never to do. He spoke with his mouth full.

“The weekly visits continued even after I left the orphanage and went to live with the Stokes. I don’t go
for dinner as often these days—she’s traveling more—but sometimes I’m invited to her home on Saturday or Sunday afternoon.”

Clara studied Donald over the rim of her cup. The strain had left his voice when he began talking of his lady friend.

“What do you and Mrs. Carhart talk about?” she pressed, surprised at her own curiosity. Donald thought for a moment.

“She has traveled all over the world. Sometimes we discuss places she visit
ed with her husband. She picks books for me to read from her library and we talk about them later. We even share an interest in photography, although I’ve never seen any of her prints.” Donald sipped his tea, then continued. “Mrs. Carhart and the Stokes are the closest thing I have to a real family.”

Clara smiled. “Maybe better. Some families
don’t get along as well.”

“Yes, and Jake’
s been a good friend, although my ma—I mean Naomi—thinks he’s a bad influence.”

Clara laughed and covered her mouth with the back of her hand to keep from losing a morsel of pie. “Oh yes, I can see how she might.”

Jake tugged
the strap of his camera bag, checked the traffic on Mechanic Street and crossed to the entrance of the
Galveston Daily News
. He skipped up the steps two at a time and pulled open the heavy wood and glass door. Five minutes later a reluctant editor agreed to make enlargements of the six negatives from Elton’s camera.

“But keep it quiet for now,” Jake said. “If there’s a story here, I’ll make sure you get it first.”

“Two hours,” his friend said, turning for the darkroom.

Outside
again, Jake headed down 21
st
Street. At Broadway he caught the trolley to the beach. He crossed the wide boulevard and stood briefly on the seawall, looking down at the sand and waves some twenty feet below. He shaded his eyes and scanned to the southwest, following the curve of the shore. In the distance, Murdoch’s Pier and the Galvez Hotel. Nearby, pelicans glided over the water, like a squadron of Spads or Nieuports on patrol.

Jake inhaled, drawing strength from
the moist salt air. Swinging his bag to the opposite shoulder, he began walking northeast up the beach. Ten minutes later he reached the spot where seawall construction was underway—or would have been if it weren’t for all the police.

Three officers stood atop the last completed secti
on, a solid wedge of concrete long as a locomotive and tall as a two-story house. Jake knew the dimensions by heart. The flat top was five feet wide. The backside, facing inland, formed a vertical slab sixteen feet tall. The ocean side arched gracefully to the sand, where granite boulders protected the wall’s wide base from the heaviest waves. The foundation rested on piles driven forty feet into the ground.

Thick
wood and steel forms were in place to pour foundations for two more sections. Activity normally continued around the clock, so it was odd to see men idle in the middle of the day.

A dozen African and Mexican workers lounged in the shade of a rail car, enjoying the unexpected rest. Their foreman, a beefy
white man with thick forearms, paced back and forth at the top of the incomplete wall, stopping occasionally to yell in the police captain’s face. At the base of the wall, other officers did their best to keep interested locals away.

One burly cop
looked vaguely familiar, like a lineman Jake might have faced when Galveston Ball played his own Houston High. The policeman’s nose had once been badly broken. Jake kept quiet about the possible football connection, in case he had done the damage himself.

“What’s going on?” Jake said.

“Who are you?” the officer barked instead of answering outright.